Tom McKibbin takes two-shot lead into the weekend at Hong Kong Open

TOM MCKIBBIN BACKED up his course record 60 with another bogey-free round on Friday to stretch his lead at the Asian Tour’s Hong Kong Open.

The Hollywood golfer fired eight birdies and an eagle on Thursday to sit atop the leaderboard overnight after the opening round at Hong Kong Golf Club.

With an invitation to both The Masters and The Open Championship up for grabs, McKibbin continued that impressive run with a five-under par 65 on Friday.

Advertisement

His 15-under par total gives him a two-shot lead, with Peter Uihlein, Kiradech Aphibarnrat and Jazz Janewattanond heading the chasing pack on 13-under.

“Very, very solid day,” McKibbin said afterwards.

“Game played very, very similar to yesterday. Just didn’t hole as many putts. But yeah, very happy to keep the bogeys off the card.”

“Hopefully, very similar stuff [over the weekend] would be nice. Think I’ve sort of took the approach going into this week just to sort of play very aggressive and sort of just whatever the outcome is, come the end of the week, it is what it is. And I think maybe I’ll just keep doing that.

And, you know, I’ve had a quite nice year. So why not just go for it?

Graeme McDowell looks set to miss the weekend cut after he shot a second record of three-under par 67 to move to four-under for the tournament.

Meanwhile, at the LPGA Maybank Championship in Kuala Lumpur, Leona Maguire sits in a tie for 34th place on four-under par after shooting a second round of 69 on Friday.

South Korea’s Hye-Jin Choi leads the tournament on 14-under par.