England’s Paul Waring carded a course record of 61 in the second round of the Abu Dhabi HSBC Championship to open up a commanding halfway lead.
Waring holed his second shot at the sixth from 119 yards for an eagle and also recorded nine birdies to reach 19 under par in pursuit of his second DP World Tour title at Yas Links.
That gave the 39-year-old a five-shot lead over Tommy Fleetwood, Thorbjorn Olesen, Johannes Veerman and Niklas Norgaard, with Rory McIlroy nine shots off the pace after a costly triple bogey on the 17th.
Waring rounded off his round in spectacular fashion on the par-five 18th, hitting his third shot from 265 yards to within three feet of the pin after having to pitch back on to the fairway following a wayward drive.
“That was the best shot I’ve ever hit in my life to be honest,” Waring said.
“The tee shot on 18 was a little bit peculiar for me because I had been hitting it great all day, so even over that three wood I felt like could I hit a solid shot into the part of the green and just hit a little draw.
“In total honesty I’m just trying to keep going, keep making birdies. My caddie made the remark a few days ago, we played a little bit golf at Trump over in Dubai and we played the Fire Course at Jumeirah Golf Estates as well and for those two rounds, I actually had 50 per cent birdies.
“We were having a bit of a laugh yesterday [Thursday] because I had nine birdies so that was 50 per cent, so he said today, right, every round, you’ve got to better 50 per cent birdies.
“Obviously feel great, swinging it great. Putter is behaving. That’s I’d say a weak spot for me now and again but I’ve done a lot of work on it, and since moving over to Dubai I’m very used to these style of greens as well.
“I’ve got a nice lead at the moment but even before I tee off tomorrow, someone might have caught me. So if I’m going to be involved on Sunday afternoon I’ve still got to keep going the way I am.”
Fleetwood, who had equalled the previous course record with a 62 on Thursday, added a 68 as he bids to win in Abu Dhabi for the third time, while McIlroy’s second consecutive 67 was marred by a six on the short 17th.
“I played quite nice up to that point and I feel like I hit a nice shot into 17, just trundled into the bunker,” McIlroy said.
“There wasn’t a lot of sand where the ball was and I just sort of made a mess of it from there, but bounced back well to birdie the last.”
McIlroy came from 10 shots behind at halfway to win in Dubai in January, but admitted: “I need the golf course to toughen up a little bit to have a chance. There’s so many gettable holes out there.
“I shot 63 on that Saturday in Dubai and I’m going to need something similar, if not lower, to give myself a chance going into Sunday.”
