Shah Alam: Indian golfer Jyoti Randhawa was unable to hold onto his fine start of three-under on the front nine and finished with a battling one-under 72 in the second round of the USD 400,000 Worldwide Holdings Selangor Masters on the Asian Tour.
The former Asian Tour No. 1 was still tied sixth, but he was joined by compatriot, Sujjan Singh (66) who had the day's second best card to move to six-under 138.
Randhawa and Sujjan were two behind a Thai teenager Panuphol Pittayarat (65) who snatched a surprise halfway lead at the Worldwide Holdings Selangor Masters after an impressive seven-under-par 65 on Thursday.
The young Thai, nicknamed 'Coconut' by his family members, overcame the flu bug to break away from a bunched leaderboard at Kota Permai Golf and Country Club with a seven-birdie round.
Overnight leader Joonas Granberg of Finland stumbled to a 75 to lie tied second with Australian Marcus Both (67) and two other upcoming Thais, Panuwat Muenlek (69) and Namchok Tantipokhakul (67).
Young Rashid Khan and Himmat brought in rounds of 71 and 70 to be tied 23rd at 140, while Gaurav Ghei (72) was 33rd at 141 and Gaganjeet Bhullar (72) and Anirban Lahiri (74) just made the cut at 143.
Manav Jaini (71-74), Ashok Kumar (68-77), Chiragh Kumar (71-75), Vikrant Chopra (75-73), Mandeo Pathania (73-75), Abhishek Jha (76-73), Vinod Kumar (77-74) and Firoz Ali (77-79) missed the cut.
"I think the 'want' got me today. I was playing well, three-under after nine holes. Then I started to want more. I wanted to close out the tournament. I got ahead of myself and made three bogeys at the turn. It was a catch up after that and I couldn't make any putts. A little disappointing but I know what to do tomorrow," Randhawa said.
"He's (Joonas Granberg) opened the field wide open now.
Anybody within four shots can win it. It's good, two shots off the lead, after two days and a month and a half holiday, I'll take it.
"I've got to chip and putt better. My short game was great yesterday but today I dropped two shots from around the green where I should have got one or two down. I putted well yesterday but not today," he added.
The pint-size Panuphol, who leads on eight-under-par 136, turned professional at a tender age of 14 as the talent pipe from Thailand unleashed yet another potential star. The bespectacled teen was delighted to top the leaderboard as he was feeling unwell.
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