Melbourne, November 23: Korean duo Byeonghun An and Siwoo Kim stood tall amidst adverse weather conditions at the ISPS HANDA Melbourne World Cup of Golf by battling to an even-par 72 to retain their overnight share of the lead after the Foursomes match on Friday.

Despite the testing conditions with persistent rain and howling winds reaching 32 km/h, An and Kim remained calm as they marked their card with three birdies against three bogeys at The Metropolitan Golf Club.

The duo, who opened their campaign with a solid 62 in the Fourball play on Thursday, holds a two-shot advantage together with Belgium’s Thomas Pieters and Thomas Detry, who posted a 71, on 10-under-par 134 total.

Anirban Lahiri and Gaganjeet Bhullar of India withstood the brutal weather as they returned with a 72 to tie in third place alongside Malaysia’s Ben Leong and Gavin Green, who fought hard for a 73 at the prestigious US$7 million event.

Team Italy of Andrea Pavan and Renato Paratore and England’s Ian Poulter and Tyrrell Hatton also joined Team India and Malaysia in third place following respective rounds of 71 and 74 at the halfway stage of the ISPS HANDA Melbourne World Cup of Golf.

Mexicans Abraham Ancer and Roberto Diaz posted the day’s best score of a 70 to trail by three shots in seventh place while home favourites Marc Leishman and Cameron Smith slipped a further shot back to tied-eighth following a 76.

China’s Li Haotong and Wu Ashun recorded a 76 to tie in 17th place on 142 while Team Thailand and Team Japan were a further three shots back in tied-21st after posting disappointing rounds of 78 and 79 respectively.

The 56-man field from 28 countries, including six Asian nations, is vying to hoist the famous trophy in the event, won previously by many legends of the games.

The tournament will switch back to fourballs for Saturday’s third round, with the final round moving back to foursomes on Sunday.

Did you know?

• Team Korea, who averaged 25 years old, is the youngest pair amongst the six two-man Asian teams in the 28-nation team competition. Byeonghun An is 27 years old while Siwoo Kim is 23.
• An, highest-ranked player from Korea, is a one-time winner on the European Tour while Kim has won twice on the PGA Tour. Kim is the first player from Asia to win twice on the PGA Tour before the age of 23.
• An is making his second appearance in the World Cup of Golf while Kim is playing for the first time in his career.
• Best results by a Korean team at the World Cup of Golf is fifth place in 1971 (Chang Sang Hahn / Seung Hak Kim) and 1982 (Chang Sang Hahn / Sang Ho Choi)
• Team India of Anirban Lahiri and Gaganjeet Bhullar hold a combined total of 16 victories on the Asian Tour, which includes three co-sanctioned wins on the European Tour.
• Lahiri, now a regular player on the PGA Tour, is a two-time International team member of the Presidents Cup. He is also the Asian Tour Order of Merit champion in 2015.
• Lahiri, 31, and Bhullar, 30, have represented India together in numerous team competitions since their amateur days. They featured in the Eisenhower Cup, Nomura Cup and Asian Games, delivering a team silver in 2006, before venturing almost at the same time into the play-for-pay ranks where they also represented Team Asia in the inaugural EurAsia Cup in 2013.
• Bhullar holds the most number of victories by an Indian player on the Asian Tour after claiming his ninth career triumph at the Fiji International presented by Fiji Airways in August.
• India’s best finish of ninth place in the event was achieved by Arjun Atwal and Jyoti Randhawa in Portugal in 2005.
• Team Malaysia of Ben Leong and Gavin Green traded three birdies against four bogeys for a round of 73.
• Malaysia’s best finish was in 1994 when M. Ramayah and the late P. Gunasegaran emerged ninth in Puerto Rico while at the 2016 World Cup in Melbourne, Danny Chia and Nicholas Fung ended up joint 22nd.
• Leong won his first Asian Tour title in 2008 before suffering from a disc prolapse in 2012. He has shown signs of returning to his best form in the last few years. Leong, a two-time Asian Development Tour (ADT) winner, has claimed two top-10s on the Asian Tour so far this season.
• Green, who claimed his maiden Asian Tour victory in Chinese Taipei last year, became the first Malaysian to lift the Asian Tour Order of Merit trophy in 2017.
• Green played his way onto the main Tour from the ADT, where he has won on three occasions. He finished second on the 2016 ADT Order of Merit to earn his Asian Tour card for 2017.

Players’ quotes:

Byeonghun An (Kor)

To shoot an even-par under such conditions is definitely very good although we didn’t get off to a good start with the bogey on first. It’s such a tough format with this wind and rain, so I think we did well to shoot even-par today.

Siwoo made some birdie putts which I thought was really nice. I made a birdie on that par-three eighth hole and that was big. And then we made another birdie on the ninth which was good too.

I missed some shots on the back nine, but thankfully he had some good short game which helped us make some good pars. We held on nicely on the back nine.

We tried to stay focused because it’s so tough with the wind and rain which was chaos really. I think we managed to keep ourselves in the game and never got out of it.

Siwoo Kim (Kor)

We did well. I missed some putts out there but it was great to fight back to even-par so I’m happy with it. It was a cold day. We were like just trying to hold on and have some fun and the result was pretty good.

Ben Leong (Mas)

It’s a good score given this condition. We stayed positive and hung in there. We holed a long putt for birdie on the 14th hole and we managed to keep that momentum going. We made the putt from about 25 to 30 feet.

The pars we made today felt like birdies. Even like 18, making a par on 18 is huge.  It’s such a tough hole and there are so many tough holes out there.

It was fun playing alongside Team Australia. I think that’s why we are here playing the World Cup. We like the experience and the opportunity to play alongside some of the best players in the world. Looking forward to the next two rounds.

Gavin Green (Mas)

Anything is possible with this kind of conditions. It was rough out there. The wind was blowing everywhere. It was cold, it was wet and keeping our clubs dry was really a bonus.

It was so hard to judge the wind, but if you told us we will shoot a one-over, we will take it anytime. Actually, I’ll take a 75.

It was just tough, Ben and I really ground it out today. We made a couple of important putts, especially Ben. A lot of good putts, important putts.

We kept it in play as much as we could and just tried to give ourselves as many looks as possible. I think our strategy has worked so far and I hope it continues.  We’ll see what happens the next two days.

Anirban Lahiri (Ind)

I think it’s one of the toughest rounds of golf I’ve played in my career, in a long, long time.  I think we both did really well out there and it wasn’t easy.

Well, this is more like playing in Scotland, I think.  We both had some experience playing links golf and you can draw to that with this and I think that experience came in handy.  We both played a bunch overseas and you need that, you really needed that today.

I think it was just one shot at a time, you know, for both of us.  I think that’s what we do really well. Whether we made a good putt or we hit a bad shot, we didn’t carry that forward, we left it behind and we just focused on the next shot and that’s the only way you can play in conditions like that. I think we both did that well today.

It was pretty consistent. We had a couple lapses in concentration which I did on the front nine.  Maybe I could have made a couple of shorter ones, but Gaganjeet made a lot of par saves and you need that. You’re not going to have easy pars all day on a day like this and we did that really well coming in.

It’s going to be another tough day tomorrow with the weather forecast. Of course it’s a different format, but I think we can only start looking at the leaderboard on Sunday afternoon.

Our goal is to just go out there tomorrow and make a lot of birdies, because you just have to stay in there, you have to give yourself a chance.  The good thing, both of us are playing really well, so I don’t see a weak link in the team at the moment.

Gaganjeet Bhullar (Ind)

The plan was to hit all the fairways, all the greens and make most of the putts, and as Anirban said, we played really well today. Anirban hit the ball so well from the tee, but I got all my favorite numbers.

And putting‑wise, I think Anirban had some really good putts and I holed a few par saves.  I think that kept the momentum going and that was one of the reasons we ended up playing well.

That birdie on the first gave us a really good start. We made a long putt like from 40 to 50 feet. After that, the round was pretty smooth all the way until we dropped one shot on the seventh hole but we picked up a shot on the ninth.  Then I think the birdie on the 13th gave us a lot of good momentum.

We made a 25-footer on 13.  I think it was just like one of those rounds where making pars are really good. We were just motivating each other and keeping the ball in play, that was the goal.

Ends.