Painful lesson for Lin

Last updated: 6th November 2009

For a while, Chinese Taipei's Lin Wen-tang felt like he was on top of the world when he led the second round of the WGC-HSBC Champions on Friday.

This after he had charged into the lead against a world-class field that included the World Nos 1 and 2, Tiger Woods and Phil Mickelson, midway through the second round with a blistering 31 at the Sheshan International Golf Club.

Then, all too suddenly, his high hopes came crashing down as he stumbled into a back nine nightmare that left him with a disappointing level-par 72 and dropped him down into a tie for 10th place, five shots behind co-leaders Woods and fellow American Nick Watney, the first round leader.

Lin, last year's number two ranked player in Asia, sadly admitted afterwards that he had got ahead of himself after brilliantly shooting five birdies in his opening nine holes at Sheshan.

"On my front nine (he teed off on the 10th), I hit it very good and putted very good. After making the turn, I knew I was leading by two, and I told my caddie, 'okay, maybe we can lead by five, or six at the end of the day.'

"But my caddie warned me I was taking things too fast, too quick," said Lin, who won the Mercuries Taiwan Masters this season for his fifth win in Asia.

And the caddie was right.

Lin soon found trouble with a bogey on the first hole and then, worse still, double bogeyed the par five second after sending an errant approach into the hazard.

And still there was more to come. Further bogeys at four and six wrecked what had been a sparkling round and undid all of his good work on his front nine.

He sees it as a good lesson learnt, however, and remains optimistic of coming back and again challenging for the HSBC Champions title, Asia's first World Golf Championship (WGC) event.

He knows he must now cope better with the tough front nine at Sheshan, having so far shot 11 birdies on the back nine over two rounds.

"I've hit good scores on the back nine. But the first nine has not been good for me. The par fours are very long on many holes but I'll just have to keep on trying," he said.

The other Asian to feature in Friday's second round was India's Jyoti Randhawa who ended the day tied for eighth place, four behind the leaders after a 70.

He was pleased to give himself a chance after enduring some difficult months with indifferent form following his victory in the Singha Thailand Open earlier this year.

"I'm well focused and whenever I got a chance I took advantage and that was a good point today," said Randhawa, who was Asia's number one in 2002.