Kapur ends round two in tied 24th, six strokes off the lead

Muirfield, Scotland, July 19, 2013: India’s Shiv Kapur, dropped from overnight tied fourth to tied 24th place after shooting a six-over-77 in the second round of the 142nd Open Championships in Muirfield, Scotland. The 31-year-old however, made his first cut at a Major with relative ease on a high-scoring day that saw some big names including World No. 2 Rory McIlroy and US Open champion Justin Rose fall by the wayside.

Kapur’s (68-77) second round of 77 featured two birdies against eight bogeys and took his total to three-over-145. The Delhi golfer trails the leader Miguel Angel Jimenez (68-71) of Spain by six shots. World no. 1 Tiger Woods (69-71) is in tied second along with fellow American Dustin Johnson, Englishman Lee Westwood and Swede Henrik Stenson, one stroke behind the leader.

The cut fell at eight-over-150. Eighty-two professionals and two amateurs made the cut.

Kapur, playing in his second Major, admitted that he could not help feeling ecstasy and agony in so short a period, yet he kept his composure. “On a course where scores have been tough and conditions so demanding, to be three-over is alright,” he said.

From six-under after nine on the first day, Shiv ended at three-under. Then on Friday he went six-over for the day and ended at three-over for 36 holes. Yet he was in the top half of the players who will play over the final two rounds and he has enough chance to improve on the best finish-ever by an Indian at tied 27th achieved by Jyoti Randhawa way back in 2004.

Kapur also became only the fourth Indian after Jyoti Randhawa (2004), Anirban Lahiri (2012) and Jeev Milkha Singh (2012) to make the cut at the British Open. Only Jeev has made the cut at the other three Majors, too.

Kapur struggled from the start after four bogeys on the first six holes. “I went into the bunkers far too often and had to keep guessing the wind direction as it kept changing. It was like playing over two different courses over two days. But then that’s links golf. It’s exciting and yet very challenging and frustrating.”

With his score at four-over after six, Shiv sank birdies on the ninth and 12th and dropped bogeys on the 10th and 13th to stay at four-over till the 17th tee. He then signed off the day with a bogey-bogey finish on the last two holes.

“Today the wind was totally opposite. So when you're standing on the tees you're trying to figure out -- it's a lot of guesswork. For example, on the ninth hole today I've hit 3-iron off the tee followed by a 6-iron. Yesterday on the same hole, I hit driver, 2-iron, 8-iron, you know. So it's a completely different golf course,” said Kapur of the conditions.

He added, “When you get off to a bad start, you're just trying to hang on, because there's not too many birdie opportunities, so to speak. I thought I did a pretty good job after that bad start to hang on for a while. Unfortunately I had the dreaded "S" word (shank) on the 17th with my third shot. I had a wedge in there and I shanked it onto the green and actually did well to make a bogey. A bad drive on 18th meant a finishing bogey. But I felt I did well to hang on and keep the score for 16 holes.”

His putting let him down in a way. “Yeah, the putter was just not hot. Yesterday you're holing putts and the game seems easy. I hit a lot of good putts that didn't really go in. I had a horseshoe out on 13. It came straight back at me.”

He added, “On the front nine I found myself leaving quite a few putts short, because in any mind I still had the speed from yesterday. You can't get yourself to hit it far enough past the hole, because you've seen them roll that far past yesterday. But on the back nine, I'm told they're drying out again. On the last five or six holes, some of that stuff that happened yesterday afternoon was happening again.”

Speaking of his first day experience, he said, “Yeah, definitely yesterday gave me a lot of self-belief that, hey, if you're going to lead a Major at some point, you can do it. The more times you put yourself in that position, the better you'll be at it. I think that's the difference between, perhaps me, and most of the players. They regularly get themselves in contention. But the fact that I even did it for nine holes means the ability is there, it's just a question of getting a bit more consistency in the game and being able to do it on a regular basis.”

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Kapur enjoys a dream start at The Open, finishes round one in tied fourth

Muirfield (Gullane, Scotland), July 18, 2013: Shiv Kapur enjoyed a dream start at the 2013 British Open as he fired a super three-under-68 to end round one in tied fourth place on Thursday. He currently trails the leader, American Zach Johnson, by two shots.

Kapur, currently ranked 210th in the world, had a whirlwind front-nine on the first day of the 142nd Open Championships. He had an unbelievable run of six birdies on the first seven holes that helped him grab the lead. The 31-year-old held on to the lead till the 10th where he found the bunker and double-bogeyed to slip into joint second behind Zach Johnson. He landed his shot in the bunker once again on the 14th to drop another stroke.

Shiv’s sublime effort on the first-nine ensured he ended the day in tied fourth at three-under for the day.

At three-under 68, Kapur was two behind Zach Johnson, the 2007 Masters champion and just one behind Spaniard Rafael Cabrera-Bello and veteran American Mark O’Meara, who shot 67 each. Miguel Angel Jimenez, Dustin Johnson, Brandt Snedeker and Tom Lehman were tied with Kapur at 68.

Tiger Woods, Phil Mickelson, Angel Cabrera and Francesco Molinari were among those at two-under.

Kapur, making his second appearance at the Open, was proud of his opening round effort. He said, “Yeah, it's nice. Nobody is expecting me to be up there and nobody was really. It's a funny name in the middle of all those sort of proven Major winners and stuff. But it was nice to see my name up there. At least I can hold my head up high and say I led The Open Championship, the greatest tournament I think there is. That's something I'll take a lot of pride in.”

Kapur went on to add, “I got off to a dream start. I birdied my first three, and after that I just said, just keep doing what you're doing, do the basics right, hit fairways and greens. Probably the fastest greens I've ever played in my life. They weren't green, they were white out there. I couldn't get the ball to sort of stop. So I knew it's tough to hole putts out there, but you've just got to keep giving yourself chances.”

Talking of the difference between the front and back nines, he said, ““It's probably pretty close to the best nine holes I've ever played. The back nine, obviously was a bit scratchy. The putts fell for me on the front nine. I didn't really feel like I played badly on the back nine either. But on the 10th, I found a fairway bunker and made a three-putt out of nowhere. That happens on this golf course. I hit a bad drive on the 14th as I pulled it a bit left. But you have to take your medicine, take your bogey and just get out of there. I guess if at the start of the day you'd said 3-under I would take it. Obviously when you're 6-under after 9, you hope you can hold on to it on the back nine. All in all the way the course was playing, I don't think I could really complain.”

Kapur, who missed the cut by one stroke in his only previous appearance at the Open back in 2006, on Thursday, became the first Indian ever to hold the sole lead at any stage in a Major. Jeev Milkha Singh had shared the lead after nine holes on the opening day of the 2007 US Masters.

The Delhi lad’s putter was on fire on the fast greens at Muirfield. He had a great putt on the first and then hit his approach shot on the second to a tap-in distance. He followed this up with a long putt on the third to accumulate three birdies in a row.

Kapur made par on the fourth before firing three more birdies in a row from the fifth through the seventh.

His sixth birdie on the seventh made him the sole leader, as he leapt past the 2007 Masters Champion, American Zach Johnson (66).

In the morning, Johnson, Miguel Angel Jimenez (68) and Mark O’Meara (67) had scorched the front nine with five-under 31 each but Kapur went one better.

After a victory-drought for seven years since his first and only triumph on the Asian Tour in 2006, Kapur finally won at the end of 2012 in a domestic event in India. He followed that up with another win at the start of 2013 at the Gujarat Kensville Challenge, a European Challenge Tour event, in Ahmedabad, India.

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Shiv Kapur qualifies for the British Open

Dunbar, Scotland, July 3, 2013: India’s Shiv Kapur qualified for his second Major appearance after he earned a berth for the 2013 Open Championship at the 36-hole Local Final Qualifying (LFQ) event in Dunbar, Scotland.

The 31-year-old Kapur fired scores of 69 and 64 in wet and cold conditions to total seven-under-133 for the event. He finished the event in tied second place to become one of three players in the field to make the cut for The Open.

Shiv’s only previous appearance at a Major was at The Open in 2006 at Hoylake where he missed the halfway cut by one shot.

Kapur’s opening round of one-under-69 had featured an eagle-three on the second hole while his second round of 64 was punctuated by six birdies.

Kapur, a former winner on the Asian Tour, said, “I wanted to try and qualify on a links course because I think that’s the proper way to do it. It was the first time I had played a links course since this time last year, so it was all a bit strange to start with, but I soon got the hang of things again. I played beautifully in the afternoon.”

He will rely on Italian Golf Federation coach, Alberto Binaghi, who also works with Italian sensation Matteo Manassero, to guide him to a successful campaign at The Open which will be played at Muirfield from July 18 to 21.

“I’ve been working with Alberto for the last few months. We had a three hour session in Milan earlier this week and we worked mainly on my short game and hitting shots in the wind. I think that helped a lot,” said Kapur, who has two top-five results on the Asian Tour this season.

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