Jeev Milkha in hot pursuit of Haeggman at HSBC India Legends Championship  

Jeev Milkha Singh. 

Khel Today Bureau

Greater Noida: India’s Jeev Milkha Singh was on the threshold of his maiden Legends Tour victory as he trailed Sweden’s Joakim Haeggman (65-70) by one stroke after two rounds of the USD 500,000 HSBC India Legends Championship at Jaypee Greens on Saturday.

Jeev with two successive 4 under 68s and an 8 under 136 aggregate also has an opportunity to score a first-ever international win at home, a feat that has eluded his otherwise illustrious career.

The 52-year-old, who has won on three different international tours, equalled the day’s best card on Saturday despite admitting to feeling ‘out of fuel’ towards the end.

Making it exciting for home fans was Jyoti Randhawa (68-72) whose mixed bag on the day included six birdies, six pars and six bogeys. Randhawa, winner of the Legend Tour’s Q School in Turkey earlier in the year, was 4-under for 36 holes and third on the leaderboard.

The conditions were hot and challenging and only eight players went under par today, four of whom were at 1-under after two days.

Other than Jeev and Jyoti, two other Indians, Amandeep Johl (73-73) and Mukesh Kumar (74-72) did well to be in Top-20 as they were tied-18th at 2-over for two rounds.

Brazil’s Adilson da Silva (68-73), who has played in India on multiple occasions in the Hero Indian Open, was sole fourth at 3-under 141. Clark Dennis, second after the opening round, slipped to fifth after a 75 on Saturday.

Though Haeggman stayed in the lead, Jeev was breathing down his neck having cut the gap between him and the Swede from three strokes to one.

Jeev did not want to get ahead of himself and is willing to ‘wait and watch’ many of the others with whom he has played around the world.

Other than a blip on his ninth hole of the day (the 18th at the Jaypee Greens Course this week), when he found the water, Jeev had a satisfying day with a second 68.

“I got greedy,” he said later of the dropped shot, though he did pull off two long putts in the course of his round on the day.

“I think the last hole par (on the ninth) was special because I hit a bad bunker shot and I holed a good 20-foot putt.  Especially on the second nine, I felt like my body wasn’t keeping up with me. Maybe I needed more energy. So the last three holes were really difficult for me because what I wanted to do, I wasn’t able to do. But I got away with it.

“Today was a much better putting day for me, much better than yesterday. And, shooting two 4-unders on this golf course in this weather, I would take it. I’ll Just go out there tomorrow and give it a best shot.”

Haeggman, a three-time winner on the European Tour before joining the Legends Tour in 2022 where he took the 2022 MCB Tour Championship – Seychelles that year, said patience was the name of the game.

“I was hitting the greens today which is very important here because chipping and putting around these greens are very tricky. You’ve got to play this golf course with patience. The main difference today was I didn’t hole as many putts as I did yesterday but in general I played quite nicely again, hit some really good golf shots and kept driving the ball okay.

“Yesterday I had a really nice run in the middle where I made a lot of birdies and hopefully I can get into that again tomorrow and have a few birdies and get some momentum. But overall really, really happy to add on to my score because if you shoot two or three over today, you’re coming back to the field. Now it’s really hard for them to kind of catch up with you.”

Haeggman is wary of Jeev, “Jeev’s going to be right in there and it couldn’t be better for the tournament, but obviously I hope that I can stay on top and beat him tomorrow, but again it’s great for the tournament that we have two Indians playing well.

“Winning is always going to be difficult, disregarding who it is and whatever tournament it is, it’s never going to be easy. You much prefer to be one ahead than one behind, so there’s a good start.”

Randhawa, who had a roller-coaster second round, said, “It was an up and down round. I think I just wanted to play good today. I put myself under pressure, you could say. You’re trying to score a good round.

“That’s why it just kept going up and down, I think, birdies, bogeys, birdies, bogeys. But having said that, it’s not that easy to play in the afternoon. The greens have gotten really hard.”

“Today It was great playing with Yuvraj Singh. I think these cricketers, they hit it a long way and he hits it far. Once they get the timing rirght, it really goes.”