Oct 26,2024
Byeong-Hun An was a popular name at the top of the leaderboard after his second-round 66 opened up a two-shot lead at the Genesis Championship.
The South Korean has drawn huge crowds in Incheon and began Friday's round just one shot adrift of overnight leader Ivan Cantero at five under par.
A birdie-birdie start saw him move into contention and he picked up another shot at the fourth, only to card back-to-back bogeys from the fifth.
He responded with a birdie at the seventh before adding another at the ninth to reach the turn in 33 and sit alongside Japan’s Rikuya Hoshino as joint leader at eight under.
An birdied the 11th hole – playing the hardest at Jack Nicklaus Golf Club Korea during the second round – but he was not alone at the top as Francesco Laporta rolled in eight birdies and a bogey to be in the clubhouse at nine under.
But the home favourite responded with a brace of birdies from the 15th to complete his 66 and take a two-shot advantage at 11 under into the weekend.
"I love to see the fans out here cheer for me. It doesn’t matter whether things go well for me or not, they are still there," the world number 36 said.
"Coming into this week I really didn’t have any expectations, I just always try my best. I really do like this home support, it’s a little different to when you don’t have home support especially yesterday when I teed off at 7.40 in the morning, usually nobody watches that early.
"Hopefully there will be more people this weekend and I can feed off from them.
"It would be nice to hold the trophy at the end of the day, but I haven’t been here for the last five years – six years in a tournament – so all I’m trying to do is show some good golf because they don’t see much of me, so I’ll try my best and see what happens."
Laporta and Casey Jarvis, who carded a 68, proved to be An’s closest challengers, with Hoshino, Cantero, Johannes Veerman and Ricardo Gouveia one shot further back at eight under.
The top 114 on the Race to Dubai on Sunday evening will maintain full playing privileges for next season and Matthew Southgate, who began the week in 127th place, climbed to provisional 110th after a second-round 67 saw him reach seven under alongside South Korea’s Tom Kim and Alejandro Del Rey.
