Daniel Denison’s scorching 66 helped him to a joint clubhouse lead alongside Danish hopeful Lasse Jensen on the second day of the ECCO Tour Championship presented by Thomas Björn and Mercedes Benz.
The 26 year old Englishman, another player to emerge from the same ISM stable as Major Champions Charl Schwartzel, Rory McIlroy and Darren Clarke, was forced to finish his first round on Thursday morning after the lightning delay on Wednesday, shooting a one over par 73.
But he turned things around in the afternoon and had moved up 47 places in the leaderboard by the end of his second round, helped by a flying start that saw him reach the turn in five under par.
Having begun his round on the tenth tee, he birdied the 12th and 13th before sinking an 18 foot uphill putt for eagle on the 17th, after a three iron approach shot, and followed that up with another birdie at the 18th.
“I had a great front nine, I putted great all day so I’m really pleased,” he said. “The front nine was great, I had the back-to-back birdies and then went eagle-birdie later on so to go five under for my front nine was really good and set me up for the rest of the round.”
Denison currently lies 13th in the Challenge Tour rankings, helped largely by a second place finish at the dual ranking SAINT OMER OPEN presented by Neuflize OBC in June.
That result rounded off an encouraging few weeks after he finished tied 20th at the Telenet Trophy in Belgium at the end of May followed by a tied tenth place finish at the Kärnten Golf Open presented by Mazda in Austria.
“Saint Omer was the end of a good run and I haven’t picked up since then so I’m looking for a strong finish here now,” he said.
Home favourite Jensen took the early clubhouse lead when he consolidated his opening 69 with a two under par second round of 70.
The Dane started his second round on the tenth hole with a bogey but managed to recover and birdies at the 14th, 17th and first holes left him in a good position to challenge for the title.
“I am very satisfied halfway through, I played a very solid round and scored really well,” said the 26 year old.
“I just need to keep on doing what I’ll be doing and I don’t think I’ll be far off the leaders when the week is over.”
Steven Tiley was another Englishman in contention at the halfway point of the second day after a round of 71 that included four birdies and three bogeys. He joined Bernt Ritthammer in tied fourth spot after the German shot up the leaderboard with a four under par 68.
