Jeev well-placed in Japanese event

Jeev Milkha Singh looked set for another good finish on the Japanese PGA Tour after tying for the third place at the halfway stage of the 120-million-yen (appx US$-970,000) Tour Championship Iiyama Cup, the flagship event of the Japanese PGA Tour.

At the Hourai Country Club in Tochigi, Japan, on Friday, the 29-year-old Indian shot a two-under 70 in his second round to aggregate eight-under 136 after 36 holes. That put him in tied third place along with Kazuhiko Hosokawa, Katsumasa Miyamoto (both Japan) and Eduardo Herrera of Colombia.

Chin-Sheng Hsieh of Taiwan led the field at 12-under 132. Chin-Sheng added a five-under 67 to his overnight 65 and opened a one-stroke lead over the big-hitting Brendan Jones of Australia.

Jones, who was joint leader after the first round, shot a four-under 68 to tally 11-under 133 after two days.

Jeev began the round with a birdie on the par-4 first hole, but slipped down the leaderboard with back-to-back bogeys on the par-5 fifth and par-4 sixth holes. He made the turn at one-over, but recovered with three birdies on the back nine. These came on the par-5 10th, and par-4 13th and 18th holes.

Daniel Chopra, the India-born Swede who is trying to make a comeback after almost 18 months of miserable form, shot a three-under 69 to be five-under 139 at the halfway stage. Chopra was tied for the 18th place.

Thongchai Jaidee of Thailand, who won the Wills Indian Open earlier this year at the Classic Golf Resort, Gurgaon, was in joint seventh place one stroke behind Jeev. Jaidee added a two-under 70 to his overnight 67.

SCORES (after 36 holes): 132 _ Chin-Sheng Hsieh (65,67); 133 _ Brendan Jones (65,68); 136 _ Jeev Milkha Singh (66,70), Kazuhiko Hosokawa (67,69), Eduardo Herrera (68,68), Katsumasa Miyamoto (69.67); 137 _ Taku Sugaya (67,70), Thongchai Jaidee (67,70), Hajime Meshiai (65,72); 138 _ SK Ho (70,68), Tsuneyuki Nakajima (68,70), Kosaku Makisaka (66,72), Keng-Chi Lin (69,69), Naomischi Ozaki (67,71), Jong-Duck Kim (69,69), Mitsutaka Kusakabe (65,73)