Thailand’s Thongchai Jaidee continues to hold the field at bay in the Carlsberg Malaysian Open but the gap was cut to two strokes by Denmark’s Thomas Björn, who celebrated his 34th birthday with a stunning eight under par 64.
Whilst he was out too early to have received any birthday wishes from his family at home, Björn noted that his round was “a pretty good gift”.
His 12 under par total of 132 stood as the clubhouse target for much of the day until Jaidee, the defending champion, once again produced a blistering back nine to reclaim pole position in the event joint sanctioned by The European Tour and the Asian Tour.
Jaidee has clearly got the measure of the final nine holes at Saujana Golf and Country Club. Twelve months ago he finished the tournament with a back nine of 30 to win the title. He has not forgotten the feeling as he needed just 31 strokes for the same nine holes on each of the first two days. In total, he is an impressive 16 under par for those 27 holes.
The 16th hole in particular seems to be a favourite of his and he would be well advised to use a six iron every time he played it. Last year he pulled two shots clear of the field when he had a hole-in-one on that hole and he almost repeated the feat with the same club in today’s second round, hitting the hole and finishing just a foot away.
That was the first of three birdies to finish which helped him to a second round 66, six under par, and a 14 under par total of 130.
“I like the back nine,” he noted. “The front nine is always quiet for me but it’s a bit different on the back nine. I drove the ball better on the last nine and my game came back to me.”
Björn emerged as Jaidee’s closest challenger at the halfway stage and the Dane will be hoping that statistics ring true in that he pointed out that the player who leads on Thursday rarely wins.
“We know over four days, normally guys who shoot well on the first day or first two days come back to the pack,” he said. “It is rare for the guy who leads on Thursday to win the tournament. Statistics show that. Sometimes someone will run away with it and they play well all week and you have to take your hat off to that. But it is rarely won on the first day. Golf tournaments are won by persistent good play throughout 72 holes.”
Since the storm suspended play on the first afternoon, Björn has hit top gear, birdieing three of the last four holes late on Thursday night to turn a one under par round to a fine four under par 68 and then carrying on in the same vein this morning.
Successive birdies in the first two holes set the tone and although he dropped a shot when he three putted the 12th, his third, he picked up another two birdies in an outward half of 33.
By then he was in the zone, not thinking about what he was doing and simply carrying on as he made his way back to the clubhouse, picking up another five birdies on the way as he raced home in 31 for a 64.
“I got off to a really good start on the first two holes and settled into the round very easily,” said Björn. “Didn’t make any mistakes and everything was pretty much how I wanted it. I wouldn’t say I played my absolute best but I played as solid as you need to around this course and created a lot of chances for myself.
“It was a nice way to spend your birthday, shooting 64. The golf course is not playing that difficult, there is no wind but these are tough conditions and it is hard to cope in this heat.”
The heat and humidity was so high on the first day that Stenson wasn’t sure he was going to make it round by the time he got to the ninth tee but things had cooled slightly by the following morning and the Swede took advantage of the easier conditions to match Björn’s 64 to lie just a solitary shot adrift.
Stenson didn’t exactly come flying out of the traps when he bogeyed his first hole of the day, the tenth, but three holes later things were looking a lot brighter. A three wood, five iron approach to the par five 13th helped set up an eagle three and when he then proceeded to birdie the last four holes of that nine he was out in 31.
Another birdie on the second, his 11th hole, was followed by a sixth of the round on the seventh, when he needed just two blows with a rescue club to reach the par five. And when he finally looked to be in trouble on his final hole after a wayward drive ended up deep in the palm trees, he was entitled to a free drop under the line of sight ruling to avoid an advertising board. With a better lie he was able to hit a sand wedge over the tree to five feet to set up yet another birdie for an 11 under par total of 133.
Stenson claimed his second European Tour title at Woburn last September when he won The Heritage and now has his sights on firstly improving his World Ranking from his current position of 133rd and then getting his game in order for the start of the Ryder Cup points race later in the year. But first his attention is on the weekend.
“Preferably you would want to play early in the morning when it is cooler but you are not too far up the leaderboard then,” he said. “So we’ll take it as it comes, drink a lot of water and play as well as I can. It is going to be good fun. I’m looking forward to it.”
Stenson was joined late in the day on 11 under par by Thailand’s Prom Meesamat with Spain’s Miguel Angel Jiménez and Swede Peter Gustaffson, winner of last November’s European Tour Qualifying School, two shots further back on nine under par after rounds of 67 and 65 respectively.
After the two hour delay to the first day’s play it was always a race against time to complete the second round and all but one competitor finished before darkness engulfed the course. When offered the light, Swede Olle Nordberg opted wait until morning to complete his round and will return to the course needing a bogey six on the 18th to make the 36 hole cut.
