Gurgaon: Amateur Vani Kapoor maintained her stranglehold over the professionals for the second day running to stretch her lead to five shots in the fifth leg of the Hero Women`s Golf Tour on Thursday.
For the second day running, the 17-year-old Vani shot a sub-par round of 71, and is now poised for sub-par score for the tournament at the Golden Greens.
Vani is five shots clear of Nalini Singh (Siwach), who carded an even par 72 for the second round. Sharmila Nicollet is a distant third at 153 after rounds of 77 and 76.
Smriti Mehra struggled with a round of 79 and is placed fourth at 156, 15 shots behind Vani. Smriti was tied with Neha Tripathi (79-77). Preetinder Kaur (77-81) is lying sixth.
Vani had another good day with all departments of her game functioning smoothly.
Vani was especially good on the greens where she sank four birdies, two on either side of the turn. She did give away three bogeys but overall she was on top of her game.
Equally impressive was young Nalini who had a birdie-birdie start and then added a third on 15th. Her bogeys on fifth, 10th and 13th saw her end the day at par, which, despite being a fine score, saw her fall back further behind Vani, who stretched her lead from four to five shots.
Vani, one of the most promising amateurs on the Indian golfing scene alongside Aditi Ashok, is poised to become the second amateur to win a professional tournament this season.
Earlier Aditi won one of the events on the Hero WPG Tour in a play-off and lost another in a playoff.
This is the fifth leg of the Hero WPG Tour, which has 15 events in 2011-12 with a total purse of Rs 42 lakh this year.
PTI
First Published: Thursday, September 29, 2011, 19:37