Staff WriterThe Swiss Challenge has its weekend double act, and it is a rather tidy one: India’s Veer Ahlawat and England’s Matthew Southgate sharing the lead at Golf Sempach after two bogey-free second rounds that made the course look briefly less like a golf examination and more like a polite invitation.
Ahlawat did the more spectacular damage, signing for a ten under par 61 to surge through the field in Lucerne. Southgate, meanwhile, produced a seven under par round of his own, less fireworks factory and more well-run accounting department, but every bit as effective. Both men reached 12 under par, one clear of Englishman George Bloor and France’s Mathieu Decottignies-Lafon.
Behind them, Australian Haydn Barron and South African Martin Vorster sit at ten under, close enough to be a nuisance and far enough back to know Saturday needs to be businesslike, bordering on rude.
Ahlawat Finds The Accelerator At Golf Sempach
Ahlawat arrived at this week’s Swiss Challenge making only his fourth Road to Mallorca start of the season, having received an invite into the tournament. By Friday evening, he had turned that opportunity into the sort of scorecard players tend to keep and frame somewhere near the coffee machine.
His 61 was clean, aggressive and beautifully timed. No bogeys. Plenty of birdies. And, crucially, no sense that he had stumbled into it by accident.
“I’m really pleased with my round,” he said. “I had a really solid day out there; I struck the ball well and made some really good birdie putts.
“If it’s as calm tomorrow as it was today, then it will be a low scoring day again.”
That may be the most dangerous sentence in tournament golf. Calm weather, receptive scoring and a field full of players with functioning wedges can turn a leaderboard into a pub brawl in soft shoes.
Driver, Wedge, Repeat
Ahlawat’s method was not complicated, which is often the point. He attacked from the tee, trusted the driver and left himself enough wedges to make the course feel shorter than it had any legal right to feel.
“All of my game is feeling very solid right now,” he added. “I’ll treat tomorrow as a normal day and try to play it one shot at a time.
“I didn’t play safe off the tee and hit a lot of drivers which made the course shorter and gave me a lot of wedges in.
“I’m going to keep the same game plan for the next few days.”
There is always something refreshing about a golfer saying he will keep doing the thing that produced a 61. This is not a week for philosophical excavation. It is a week for standing on the tee, choosing the large stick and seeing whether the golf ball agrees.
Southgate’s Plan Pays Off
Southgate’s rise was built differently. The 37-year-old did his best work early, collecting five birdies on the front nine and turning in 31. From there, he held the round together with the sort of discipline that rarely looks dramatic until the scorecard is signed.
He has dropped just one shot through 36 holes, and his second round at Golf Sempach was bogey-free. That tends to suggest a man not merely playing well, but thinking clearly.
“I like the golf course,” he said. “I played here a long time ago and I got my head around it this week after a couple of practice rounds.
“I stuck to my game plan really well and I’m proud of myself for doing that really.
“I wrote down on Monday and Tuesday exactly what I wanted to do and stuck to it which is powerful for me.
“I’ve not been lacking confidence this year. I landed on some good yardages for some shots that really suited me today.
For Southgate, the value was not just in the birdies. It was in avoiding the sort of small, irritating mistakes that nibble at tournament rounds like midges at dusk.
“Going bogey free meant that I stuck to the game plan well,” he added. “You need to go on those runs where you really start to turn the heat up, so it was nice to get that going today.”
A Crowded Chase Behind The Leaders
Bloor and Decottignies-Lafon remain very much in the conversation at 11 under par. One shot back at this stage is not so much a deficit as a mildly inconvenient parking space.
Barron and Vorster, both at ten under, are hardly out of touch either. With scoring clearly available at Golf Sempach, the third round of the Swiss Challenge has all the ingredients required for movement: calm players, low numbers and just enough leaderboard pressure to make even a three-footer look like it has developed a personality.
That is the charm of this stage of a tournament. Friday sorts the form from the furniture. Saturday asks who can keep breathing normally when the leaderboard starts whispering.
The Weekend Setup
The third round of the Swiss Challenge gets underway at 07:50 local time, with Ahlawat and Southgate teeing off at 12:45.
Ahlawat brings momentum and a wonderfully uncomplicated attacking plan. Southgate brings structure, patience and the evidence of a man who wrote down his intentions and then, rather inconveniently for everyone else, followed them.
Golf Sempach has offered birdies. The leaders have accepted them. Now comes the less polite part: holding the door shut while the rest of the field tries to kick it in.
