Go pulls in front by 3 with another 72 in PH Amateur Open

MANILA, Philippines — Lloyd Jefferson Go got off the gates horridly for the second straight day but, just like on Monday, righted the ship with aplomb to become the new Philippine Amateur Open championship leader.

Starting out double bogey-bogey, Go picked up three shots the rest of the way to salvage a level 72 for a three-shot lead over Singaporean defending champion Jerome Ng halfway through the tournament presented by MVP Sports Foundation at Wack Wack East.

“I just told myself that, ‘It’s OK, just keep on playing,’” the 18-year-old Go said after needing two shots to get out of the greenside bunker on No. 1 and then missing the green on the second hole and failing to drain an 8-foot putt for par.

He then gunned down birdies on Nos. 7, 13 and 15 for a 144 total going into the final 36 holes of the event also backed by Pancake House, Golf Depot and Pacsports as part of the PLDT Group Amateur Tour.

Ng, the third straight foreigner to win the event last year, scrambled for a 73, with first-round leader Jobim Carlos ruing a bad day on the greens with a 77 that put him four shots behind at 148.

Gabriel Atienza, a relative unknown playing out of Forest Hills in Antipolo, returned a second straight 75 to remain in contention at 150 with Singapore’s Abdul Hadi and new PH Team member Justin Quiban shooting a 71 and 74, respectively, for 151.

Johnson Poh, another mainstay of the Singaporean national squad, fired a 78 despite signing for a fat 8 on the par-3 15th for 152, with teammate Marc Ong another stroke behind, eight behind overall.

Go, who will miss Cebu Country Club’s three-peat bid in the PAL Interclub next month because of his studies at Seton Hall in the United States, made a 10-footer for birdie on No. 7 and then was on in two on the par-5 13th after a hybrid from 230 yards away for an easy bird.

But the highlight of his round was the 40-footer he made for birdie on the 15th, which came before he almost birdied the next hole from the bunker off a very difficult stance.

“I thought I was lucky today,” Go said. And while Go did have some luck on the greens, Carlos had the complete opposite, having only one one-putt in a birdie-less round. That one-putt came on the 15th, where he needed to save par from about nine feet.

“I thought I hit everything well,” Carlos, the 21-year-old advertising junior at the University of San Francisco, said. “I just couldn’t putt, that’s all.”