You can’t do better than a 100 percent strike-rate, so a four from four success in surviving the midway cut in the ISPS Handa Vic Open for the quartet of Irish players involved - Stephanie Meadow and Leona Maguire in the women’s tournament, Jonathan Caldwell and Cormac Sharvin in the separate men’s event - is quite the effort.
What’s more, all four have moved into the business end of matters: Meadow shot a second round 70 for a midway total of 137, five strokes behind halfway leader Madeline Sagstrom, and Maguire shot a second successive 69 for 138. Caldwell, having earned his card for the European Tour through Q-School, shot a second successive 67 for 10-under-par 134, four behind leader Robin Sciot Siegrist, with rookie Cormac Sharvin’s 67 for 137 moving him comfortably inside the cut line.
Meadow reserved her best form last season until retaining her card with a tied-sixth finish in the Volunteers of America Classic and the 28-year-old Northern Irishwoman has brought that confidence into the new season: she followed her bogey-free opening round with a second round that featured four birdies and a lone bogey. Meadow hit a hot streak from the 10th, with a hat-trick of birdies to lie in tied-11th at the midpoint of the tournament played at the 13th Beach Golf Links on the Bellarine Peninsula in Victoria, where the two tournaments are held simultaneously.
For her part, Maguire - who missed the cut on her season’s debut in the Gainbridge Championship in Florida last month - shot a bogey-free four-under-par 69 on the Nick Faldo-designed Creek Course to move into a share of 20th place through 36 holes.
Caldwell had prepared for his visit to Australia with some warm-weather practice in the United States en route to the Vic Open - which is co-sanctioned by the European Tour - and the 35-year-old Co Down man, a former Walker Cup team-mate of Rory McIlroy back in 2007, showed his pedigree with a second 67 to moved into tied-seventh.
In a round which featured an eagle - on the 17th - to go with four birdies and a bogey, Caldwell, ranked 575th in the world, reached the halfway point of the tournament four strokes behind Frenchman Sciot Siegrist and two behind Australian Travis Smyth in second.
Sharvin, who graduated from the Challenge Tour last season, produced an error-free second round of 67 - containing five birdies - to move from outside the cut mark at the start of his second round up to a share of 29th position and with the weekend to make further inroads.
Tour rookie Sciot Siegrist - who earned his card at Q-School having narrowly missed out at the Grand Final on the Challenge Tour - shot a bogey-free 64 for 130 to assume the halfway lead. “It was a great round, I played really good golf and putted really well,” said the Frenchman, who won the Northern Ireland Open at Galgorm Castle on the Challenge Tour in 2017.
Women’s selected second round scores & totals in the LPGA Tour ISPS Handa Vic Open (USA unless stated, par 72):
13th Beach GC:
132 Madelene Sagstrom (Swe) 65 67
135 A-yean Cho (Kor) 69 66, Linnea Strom (Swe) 66 69
136 Pei-ying Tsai (Tai) 68 68, Haeji Kang (Kor) 65 71, Hee Young Park (Kor) 68 68
137 Cydney Clanton 68 69, Haley Moore 66 71, Pornanong Phatlum (Tha) 67 70, Christina Kim 67 70, Alena Sharp (Can) 68 69
138 Perrine Delacour (Fra) 69 69, Sarah Kemp (Aus) 71 67, Klara Spilkova (Cze) 67 71
139 Xi Yu Lin (Chn) 67 72, Pavarisa Yoktuan (Tha) 67 72, Jin Hee Imn (Kor) 69 70
140 Dana Finkelstein 67 73, Tiffany Joh 67 73, Dottie Ardina (Phl) 70 70
Creek Course:
133 Ally McDonald 68 65
135 Robyn Choi (Aus) 70 65
136 Jasmine Suwannapura (Tha) 69 67, Minjee Lee (Aus) 69 67
137 Stephanie Meadow (NIrl) 67 70, Hye Jin Choi (Kor) 69 68, (a) Min A Yoon (Kor) 71 66, Jeongeun Lee (Kor) 68 69
138 (a) Jiwon Jeon (Kor) 69 69, Leona Maguire (Irl) 69 69, Karine Icher (Fra) 70 68
139 Linnea Johansson (Swe) 70 69, Emma Talley 73 66, Maria Torres (Pue) 72 67, Pei-yun Chien (Chn) 65 74
140 Tiffany Chan (Hkg) 70 70, Lauren Stephenson 70 70
Selected second round scores & totals in the European Tour ISPS Handa Vic Open (Gbr & Irl unless stated, par 72):
13th Beach GC:
132 Travis Smyth (Aus) 65 67
133 Jake McLeod (Aus) 65 68, Min Woo Lee (Aus) 66 67, Matthew Griffin (Aus) 65 68
134 Alejandro Canizares (Spa) 63 71
135 Benjamin Poke (Den) 68 67, Stephen Allan (Aus) 70 65
136 Matthew Stieger (Aus) 67 69, Michael Hendry (Nzl) 67 69, Ashley Chesters 69 67
137 Cormac Sharvin 70 67, Josh Younger (Aus) 68 69, Andrew Evans (Aus) 66 71, Kevin Yuan (Aus) 69 68, Peter Wilson (Aus) 67 70, Brett Rankin (Aus) 70 67, Hideto Tanihara (Jpn) 70 67
138 Gareth Paddison (Nzl) 67 71, Matthew Jordan 72 66, Daniel Hillier (Nzl) 68 70, Ryan Fox (Nzl) 67 71, Brad Kennedy (Aus) 66 72, Lincoln Tighe (Aus) 69 69, Blake Windred (a) (Aus) 69 69, Peter Lonard (Aus) 69 69
139 Darren Beck (Aus) 69 70, Sebastian Garcia Rodriguez (Spa) 68 71, Steven Jeffress (Aus) 67 72, Nick Cullen (Aus) 68 71, Jason Scrivener (Aus) 68 71, Martin Dive (Aus) 69 70, Ryan McCarthy (Aus) 68 71, Luke Toomey (Aus) 71 68, Chang Gib Lee (Kor) 68 71
Creek Course:
130 Robin Sciot-Siegrist (Fra) 66 64
133 Jed Morgan (Aus) 66 67
134 Geoff Ogilvy (Aus) 67 67, Jarryd Felton (Aus) 67 67, Jonathan Caldwell 67 67, Nick Flanagan (Aus) 67 67, Shae Wools-Cobb (Aus) 67 67
135 Zach Murray (Aus) 66 69, Andrew Martin (Aus) 66 69, Blake Collyer (Aus) 68 67, Lars Van Meijel (Ned) 68 67, Marcus Fraser (Aus) 70 65, Ashley Hall (Aus) 67 68
136 Wil Besseling (Ned) 67 69, Hugo Leon (Chi) 68 68, Andre Lautee (a) (Aus) 69 67, Scott Arnold (Aus) 68 68, Derek Ackerman (USA) 67 69
137 Justin Warren (Aus) 65 72, Sam Horsfield 70 67, David Smail (Nzl) 68 69, Niklas Lemke (Swe) 70 67, Rikard Karlberg (Swe) 69 68, Aaron Cockerill (Can) 66 71, Sean Crocker (USA) 67 70
138 Ben Eccles (Aus) 68 70, Matthew Millar (Aus) 72 66, Daniel Fox (Aus) 70 68, Sami Valimaki (Fin) 69 69, Denzel Ieremia (Nzl) 70 68, Cory Crawford (Aus) 70 68
139 Aaron Townsend (Aus) 69 70, Lucas Herbert (Aus) 70 69, Robbie Morrison 69 70, Dave Coupland 70 69, Anthony Quayle (Aus) 75 64, Richard Green (Aus) 70 69, Peter Fowler (Aus) 69 70
