PARATORE LEADS JUNIOR ORANGE BOWL BOYS BY FOUR SHOTS AT HALFWAY

DAVID MACKINTOSH REPORTS
CORAL GABLES, Florida: Italy’s Renato Paratore has taken charge of the the Junior Orange Bowl Boys' Division with a pair of 67s for eight-under 134 and a four-stroke halfway lead over Venezuela’s Jorge Garcia, Belgium’s Alan De Bondt and Chile’s Guillermo Pereira.  

Overnight leader Renato Paratore slipped into a tie for fifth place with a lacklustre 73, explaining, “It was a day when my putter simply wouldn’t cooperate at all.” 
Austria’s Gerold Folk leaped into contention with a best-of-the day 66, Paratore and De Bondt posting 67s.  

For De Bondt it was a tale of two nines, out in three-under 32, despite missing three easy birdie chances, then surviving a plugged ball in a bunker and another in a water hazard for his 67. 

“It definitely went from relaxed to stressful,” he said.

Garcia finished his round with an eagle 3.

“That was huge,” he said. “It means I get to play in the leading group.”        

In the Girls' Division, Canadian Ladies Amateur champion Brooke Henderson made up the two-stroke overnight deficit o South Korea’s Soyoung Kim. The two are tied for the 36-hole lead at two-under par 140. 

USA’s Megan Khang (70, 141) moved into solo third,  now a single stroke behind the leaders.

Low scoring expectations after unseasonable overnight rain were offset by a blustery wind that had the majority of players baffled.

“Mostly it was a club-up day but we also had a lot of cross-wind holes where, if you weren’t careful, you might catch a slider that could get off line really quickly,” Henderson noted.

That was a perspective shared by Garcia, a young Venezuelan who has been Miami- based for the past three years.

“The other difficulty was, because the greens weren’t quite as slick as they sometimes can be here, the grain was really pronounced and when the wind and grain are in the same direction, it is really hard to control the speed and the line.”

Notwithstanding the complicated conditions, Henderson could have gone much lower than 72. She hit 15 of 18 greens in regulation but without the benefit of a hot putter.

“I set up a lot of good birdie chances but mostly I played cautiously to avoid making a big mistake,” she said after a round consisting of 17 pars and a single bogey.

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 HALFWAY LEADERBOARD

Par 142 (2x71)

BOYS (yardage: 6,742)
134 Renato Paratore (Italy) 67 67
138 Alan De Bondt (Belgium) 69 69, Jorge Garcia (Venezuela) 69 69, Guillermo Pereira (Chile) 67 71
139 Tim Colanta (United States) 68 71, Dominic Foos (Germany) 71 68.
140 Gerold Folk (Austria) 74 66, Stuart Krog (Zimbabwe) 69 71, Guido Migliozzi (Italy) 67 73, Jorge Villar (Mexico) 71 69.

SELECTED SCORES
149 David Carey (Ireland)75 74 (T26)
151 Ben Amor (England) 71 80 (T32)

GIRLS (yardage: 6,089)

140 Brooke Henderson (Canada) 68 72, Soyoung Lee (Southy Korea) 66 74

141 Megan Khang (United States) 71 70

142 Asuka Kashiwabara (Japan) 70 72.

144 Bailey Tardy (United States) 74 70.

SELECTED SCORES

145 Olivia Cowan (Germany) 74 71 (T6)

146 Emily Pedersen (Denmark) 73 73 (9th)

151 Sammy Fuller (England) 80 71 (19th)

153 Fiona Liddell (Scotland) 78 75 (21st)