Veer Ahlawat and Matthew Southgate share a one-stroke lead heading into the weekend of the Swiss Challenge at Golf Sempach.
Indian Ahlawat’s ten under par second round of 61 bettered Englishman Southgate’s seven under par as the pair reached 12 under to top the leaderboard, one shot clear George Bloor and Mathieu Decottignies-Lafon.
Both leaders went bogey free in the second round, with Ahalwat delighted to be in contention heading into the weekend after a mixed start to the season.
“I’m really pleased with my round,” he said. “I had a really solid day out there; I struck the ball well and made some really good birdie putts.
“If it’s as calm tomorrow as it was today, then it will be a low scoring day again.”
Ahlawat is making his fourth start on the Road to Mallorca this season after receiving an invite to this week’s tournament and stormed up the leaderboard on a scoreable afternoon in Lucerne.
“All of my game is feeling very solid right now,” he added. “I’ll treat tomorrow as a normal day and try to play it one shot at a time.
“I didn’t play safe off the tee and hit a lot of drivers which made the course shorter and gave me a lot of wedges in.
“I’m going to keep the same game plan for the next few days.”
It was the front nine that vaulted Southgate into the lead with five birdies before making the turn in just 31 strokes. Despite the positive start in Switzerland, the 37-year-old isn’t putting too much pressure on himself going into the weekend.
“I like the golf course,” he said. “I played here a long time ago and I got my head around it this week after a couple of practice rounds.
“I stuck to my game plan really well and I’m proud of myself for doing that really.
“I wrote down on Monday and Tuesday exactly what I wanted to do and stuck to it which is powerful for me.
“I’ve not been lacking confidence this year. I landed on some good yardages for some shots that really suited me today.
Southgate carded a bogey free second round at Golf Sempach and dropped just one shot in the opening 36 holes.
“Going bogey free meant that I stuck to the game plan well,” he added. “You need to go on those runs where you really start to turn the heat up, so it was nice to get that going today.”
Englishman Bloor and Frenchman Decottignies-Lafon remain in a share second at 11 under par, with Australian Haydn Barron and South African Martin Vorster a further shot back on ten under par.
The third round of the Swiss Challenge gets under way tomorrow at 07:50 local time, with Ahlawat and Southgate teeing off at 12:45.
