Justin Harding managed to remain within touching distance of the lead at the Omega Dubai Desert Classic with a steady second-round 70 on Friday.
Harding made a brilliant start to the event by going six under for his opening round but showed great composure to stay in the hunt during his second round.
Three birdies and one bogey saw him move to eight under par at the halfway stage of the week, trailing leader Thomas Detry by two shots.
The Belgian shot a consecutive round of 67 on Friday to move to ten under, holding a slender one-shot lead over Scotland’s Robert MacIntyre, who currently occupies second spot.
The only man bogey free for 36 holes ✍️@tomdetry takes a one shot lead into the weekend. #ODDC | @Workday
— The European Tour (@EuropeanTour) January 29, 2021
Harding, though, will start the weekend’s action in T3, alongside Kalle Samooja and Tommy Fleetwood, while Compleat Golfer’s playing editor Brandon Stone is only a further stroke back on seven under.
Stone carded a second-round five-under-par 67 to climb up the leaderboard as he goes in search of a fourth European Tour win.
He is joined by Lee Westwood, Paul Casey, Adri Arnaus, Mikko Korhonen and Kurt Kitayama in T6.
Overnight-leader Richard Sterne stumbled a bit during his second round by shooting a two-over-par 74, dropping down to six under.
READ: Richard Sterne makes staggering start in Dubai
Justin Walters finished Friday’s action on two under par with Jayden Schaper on one under.
George Coetzee, Dean Burmester and Christiaan Bezuidenhout all managed to avoid the cut. They will head into moving day on even par.
Zander Lombard, Haydn Porteous, Wilco Nienaber, Ernie Els and Garrick Higgo will all unfortunately not feature over the weekend after missing the cut.
