Mikko Korhonen took an unconventional route to a 68 as he moved into the solo lead heading into the weekend at the KLM Open.
Related: Manassero and Korhonen share early lead in KLM Open
The Finn made a hole-in-one en route to a share of the lead on day one and he added every score from two to seven in round two to move to ten under.
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That left him one shot clear of American Sean Crocker, who carded a 67, and two ahead of English duo Ross Fisher and James Morrison.
Korhonen is a two-time winner on the DP World Tour but his appearance at last month’s Soudal Open was his first in 12 months and this is just the third event of his comeback from a spell out.
A holed nine iron from 137 yards was the highlight of a second round that also contained six birdies, two bogeys and a triple, and the 43-year-old was happy to be back on Tour.
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Dane Rasmus Højgaard matched the lowest round of the day with a 65 to sit at seven under alongside England’s Matthew Baldwin, Scot Ewen Ferguson, American Nicolo Galletti, Italian Matteo Manassero and German Matti Schmid.
Player quotes
Mikko Korhonen: I had a little adventure in the long stuff and then I holed a nine iron so lots of things happened.
I didn’t really expect anything. It’s just my third event coming out of a year’s medical so not much expectation but I’m happy to be here and happy to play well.
When you get relaxed and you’re in the moment you don’t see anything else. The golf course is nice, I like it. It’s rewarding good drives. There’s a couple of blind shots so you have to really commit to the tee-shots. It’s linksy but it’s not running that fast yet.
Sean Crocker: Probably some of the better golf I have played in a while tee to green. I felt a little bit more like myself with my ball striking and the control off the tee, and then obviously when I get my putter somewhat decent during my rounds I seem to be able to put a score together.
So it was clean for how tough this golf course is from off the tee, and then you have some pretty crazy greens so I just kept it tight tee to green which was nice.
Even when I am in contention I just want to kind of have fun, but I obviously know that there is an end goal at the end of this week for me. I haven’t played great golf since the start of the season, so I would like to get moving again and go in the right direction.
James Morrison: I’m happy. When you come to a golf course that you know suits your game and then to go and back it up is even nicer. You come in here and know that you can play well on this golf course and to do it is really satisfying.
All I can do is to hit it straight. When I see a golf course that I know if you hit it straight you get benefited for that then that is always a golf course that I feel suits my game whereas most courses the last few years that we play suit the bombers. As much as I would love to say I am a bomber, I am not a bomber so when I get to a golf course like this where driving is the key for the week.
Same golf again [over the weekend]. I finished fourth here in 2019 so it is a golf course that has got good memories for me. I think I have missed three cuts in the last year or so, so I am playing really well. That big week has just never been far away, so hopefully it might be this week. I am happy with where I am at so we will see what happens.
Ross Fisher: From a playing perspective a little bit different. Yesterday felt really solid all day, a couple of silly mistakes, but today was probably a little bit of a slow start. It was going ok but again, a couple of sloppy mistakes, but holing the putt on one for par after missing the green, not to go a couple over for the round kind of gave me momentum and then I kind of kicked on from there.
Game has felt really, really good unfortunately results just haven’t gone my way. Belgium was a step in the right direction, the first two days played great and was never looking like making a bogey and then the weekend just slowed down massively. You know that is a positive start, two really solid rounds and like you say, hopefully building for something special on the weekend.
