Seher Atwal carded a flawless 3-under 68 to emerge a sole leader in the opening leg of the Hero Women’s Pro Golf Tour at the Poona Club Golf Course here on Thursday.
The 36-hole cut was applied at 160 and prominent players missing out included Anisha Agarwalla and Suchitra Ramesh.
Seher, who had three birdies, took a two-shot lead over the first round leader Shagun Narain (71-73). She hit birdies on the fourth, ninth and 14th, is now even par 142 while Shagun is 2-over 144.
Ridhima Dilawari (75-71) overcame a disappointing opening round with a par score to be at third place with a total of 4-over 146.
Neha Tripathi had an awful second round with a triple bogey and a double bogey in a card of 6-over 77 as she slipped to fourth place, down from tied second.
Seher had a win last season and before that she won at the same course in Pune in 2021 when a Hero WPGT event was held.
Seher, the only Indian golfer to get a status onto the Ladies European Tour through the Qualifying School this year, was second on the Hero Order of Merit in 2022. She is hoping to get some starts alongside Diksha Dagar (54th), the only Indian in LET’s Top-60 in 2022, Vani Kapoor (63rd) and Amandeep Drall (66th), who were just outside Top-60 last year.
Shagun had two bogeys against no birdies on the front nine, and then had two each of birdies and bogeys on the back nine. Ridhima had three birdies against one double bogey and one bogey.
Four players including amateur Vidhatri Urs were tied for fifth at 9-over 151. They were Gauri Karhade (78-73), Ananya Datar (76-75) and Sneha Singh (75-76). Sneha also had a quadruple bogey eight on Par-4 third hole.
Amateur Lavanya Jadon (76-76) was ninth and Nayanika Sanga (73-80), dropped from tied second to 10th.