Jeev Milka Singh leads
Austria Open
by four strokes

Jeev Milkha Singh added a sensational 63 to his opening 64 to pull away from the field and threaten total domination at the Bank Austria Golf Open presented by Telekom Austria.
Singh’s 36 hole aggregate of 15-under-par 127 equalled the lowest first 36 hole score of the 2008 European Tour season and ensured a four-stroke advantage over England’s Simon Wakefield, and a five-shot lead over New Zealand’s Mark Brown and Australia’s Peter Fowler on the second round leaderboard.
Singh, pictured above, has been in wonderfully consistent form for the majority of the year with two second place finishes to his name. The Indian is naturally keen to go one step further, and he will have fewer better opportunities given that there is just 18 holes left to play at Fontana Golf Club after tournament officials were left with no choice but to cut the event to 54 holes after the complete loss of play on Thursday.
“I am very pleased with that,” Singh told a packed press conference after completing his excellent 63. “I am happy with the way that I have played, especially today when I was bogey free and holed a great long putt on the last for eagle.
“I hit the ball really well today in fact – I putted well too. To be 15 under after two rounds doesn’t come every often – I can't remember the last time was that I did that. It is certainly not coming back to my memory so I might never have done it.
“I am pretty happy with the way that I have managed myself and conducted myself on the golf course. I think when any golfer gets to certain score they can get anxious and get ahead of themselves so I am very happy with the way that I handled that.”
Wakefield is another man who can be rightly pleased with his first 36 holes. The Englishman feels a breakthrough victory on The European Tour is long overdue having come so close last season when he lost out in a sudden-death play-off to Marc Warren at the Johnnie Walker Championship at Gleneagles.
“I felt like last year at Gleneagles was my week,” said Wakefield. “I was three under for the last round, made no bogeys and felt like I had done nothing wrong Marc then makes a fantastic up and down and I hit one of the best putts that I had hit all week and broke the other way and missed.
“I didn’t feel that I was robbed but I was a bit disappointed. Every time I watch that replay I still think that putt is going in. This week, Jeev is obviously playing great with his new clubs and it’s going to be a good day tomorrow.”
Barring a final round collapse from the leader, it seems that only Wakefield, Brown and Fowler – and perhaps the fifth placed trio of Richard Bland, Soren Hansen and Gary Murphy on nine under – have a realistic chance of catching Singh at the top of the leaderboard.
Of those players in pursuit of Singh, Brown produced the best score of the day, matching Singh’s second round 63 to move into contention.
But if Singh can maintain the unshakeable mindset and beautiful golf that he has produced over the first two rounds at Fontana, he will surely add a third European Tour title to his Volvo China Open and Volvo Masters successes of 2006.
SCOREBOARD
Par 142 (2 x 71)
127 Jeev Milkha Singh (Ind) 64 63
131 Simon Wakefield 66 65
132 Mark Brown (USA) 69 63, Peter Fowler (Aus) 65 67
133 Richard Bland 66 67, Soren Hansen (Den) 68 65, Gary Murphy 64 69
134 Graeme McDowell 67 67, Michael Jonzon (Swe) 70 64, Emanuele Canonica (Ita) 65 69
135 Martin Wiegele (Aut) 64 71, Juan Abbate (Arg) 70 65, Francesco Molinari (Ita) 68 67, Garry Houston 68 67, Christian Nilsson (Swe) 64 71, Julio Zapata (Arg) 70 65, Sven Struver (Ger) 70 65, Fabrizio Zanotti (Par) 67 68, Sam Little 68 67
136 Chris Gane 68 68, Liam Bond 66 70, Martin Erlandsson (Swe) 67 69, Paul Waring 68 68, Scott Strange (Aus) 69 67, Andrew Coltart 71 65, Pelle Edberg (Swe) 64 72, Pablo Larrazabal (Spa) 68 68, Iain Pyman 69 67
137 Adilson Da Silva (Bra) 69 68, Kariem Baraka (Ger) 69 68, Steven O'Hara 67 70, Robert Rock 68 69, Alessandro Tadini (Ita) 67 70, Scott Barr (Aus) 64 73, David Higgins 71 66, Adam Gee 66 71, Ian Garbutt 66 71, Jan Are Larsen (Nor) 71 66, Francois Delamontagne (Fra) 69 68, Maarten Lafeber (Ned) 67 70, Louis Oosthuizen (Rsa) 73 64, James Morrison 70 67, Sion Bebb 74 63, Stephen Gallacher 67 70, Paul Lawrie 68 69, Thomas Aiken (Rsa) 66 71
138 Anthony Wall 67 71, Peter Baker 70 68, Alejandro Canizares (Spa) 70 68, Steven Jeppesen (Swe) 67 71, Markus Brier (Aut) 68 70, Kyron Sullivan 71 67, Graeme Storm 69 69, Edoardo Molinari (Ita) 69 69
139 Joakim Backstrom (Swe) 68 71, Lee Slattery 69 70, Andrew Tampion (Aus) 70 69, Andrew Marshall 70 69, Terry Pilkadaris (Aus) 67 72, Darren Clarke 70 69, Thongchai Jaidee (Tha) 71 68
140 Craig Lee 71 69, Zane Scotland (Gbr) 70 70, Steve Alker (Nzl) 76 64, Tim Dykes 67 73, Stuart Manley 69 71, Robert McGuirk 74 66, Jean-Francois Lucquin (Fra) 70 70, Santiago Luna (Spa) 72 68, Toni Karjalainen (Fin) 70 70
MISSED THE CUT
141 Patrik Sjoland (Swe) 72 69, Matthew Cort 68 73, Scott Drummond 72 69, David Lynn 68 73, John Bickerton 70 71, Paul Nilbrink (Swe) 72 69, Marco Soffietti (Ita) 71 70, Tim Milford 74 67, Richard Green (Aus) 71 70, Hernan Rey (Arg) 69 72, Bernd Wiesberger (Aut) 69 72, Philip Golding 73 68, Cesar Monasterio (Arg) 72 69
142 Mattias Eliasson (Swe) 69 73, Benn Barham 69 73, Robert Coles 70 72, Niki Zitny (Aut) 72 70, David Park 69 73, Rafael Echenique (Arg) 71 71, Gary Clark 72 70, Johannes Steiner (Aut) 73 69, Gareth Paddison (Nzl) 69 73, Claude Grenier (Aut) 71 71, Andrew Willey 72 70, Tom Whitehouse 72 70, Ignacio Garrido (Spa) 73 69, Daniel Wardrop 74 68
143 Peter Whiteford 71 72, Mark Davis 70 73, David Howell 70 73, Gary Emerson 73 70, Carl Suneson (Spa) 70 73, Sebastien Delagrange (Fra) 72 71, Emilio Dominguez (Arg) 73 70, Florian Praegant (Aut) 68 75, Rafael Cabrera Bello (Spa) 71 72, Jyoti Randhawa (Ind) 75 68, Edward Rush 74 69
144 Roope Kakko (Fin) 70 74, Henrik Nystrom (Swe) 73 71, Gustavo Rojas (Arg) 73 71, Mikko Korhonen (Fin) 70 74, Darren Fichardt (Rsa) 76 68, Paul Broadhurst 71 73, Costantino Rocca (Ita) 72 72, Benoit Teilleria (Fra) 73 71, Fredrik Widmark (Swe) 71 73, Daniel DeLeon (USA) 74 70
145 Jurgen Maurer (Aut) 71 74, Andrew Oldcorn 73 72
146 Alex Haindl (Rsa) 68 78, Doug McGuigan 73 73, Ben Parker 70 76, Gabriel Canizares (Spa) 68 78, Joakim Rask (Swe) 72 74, David Dixon 70 76, Chris Lange (USA) 71 75, Pablo Martin (Spa) 77 69
147 Uli Weinhandl (Aut) 72 75, Pedro Linhart (Spa) 76 71, Michael Campbell (Nzl) 69 78, Luis Claverie (Spa) 75 72, Kevin Collins (USA) 72 75, Tano Kromer (Aut) 74 73
148 David Drysdale 76 72, Hans Peter Bacher (Aut) 74 74, Lee Corfield 78 70
149 John Mellor 69 80, Lee S James 77 72, Michael Moser (Aut) 77 72
150 Alexander Wernig (Aut) 76 74, Clemens Prader (Aut) 76 74, Paolo Terreni (Ita) 71 79, Thomas Feyrsinger (Aut) 72 78
151 Peter Kaensche (Nor) 78 73
152 Ben Mason 78 74
153 Rolf Muntz (Ned) 75 78, Bernard Reiter (Aut) 76 77
155 Scott Henderson 79 76
156 Lukas Nemecz (Aut) 84 72
157 Matjaz Gojcic (Slo) 78 79
160 Benjamin Palanszki (Hun) 81 79
162 Jerome Theunis (Bel) 78 84