Johannes Veerman vowed to “just keep swimming” after grabbing a share of the clubhouse lead during the early stages of the second round of the Abu Dhabi HSBC Championship.
Veerman followed up his impressive opening 63 with a five-under-par 67 to set the clubhouse target at 14 under par at Yas Links, with Denmark's Niklas Norgaard carding a flawless 65 to join him on that mark.
The American, whose only DP World Tour title to date came at the Real D+D Czech Masters three years ago, started the day one behind Tommy Fleetwood.
Veerman began his round with four birdies in his first six holes, the last of them a 22-foot effort.
Back-to-back gains at the start of the back nine proved something of a false dawn, however, as the 32-year-old's only deviation from par over the last seven holes came with a three-putt bogey on the 15th.
“Pretty good - I was the first off this morning, and so you don't really have to sleep on a whole lot. You just kind of wake up and off you go,” Veerman said.
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“I got off to a great start again; this course is in such good condition. Me and the guys in the group were saying this is the best putting surface you will ever putt on because it's first off, perfect greens. It was real fun to play today.
“This is why we all play golf. Because you want to be in these situations, and you want to feel the pressure, and it's great to feel uncomfortable. It's very stressful at the same time, but that's why you play to be here. You also try not to think too much about it.
“So it's just weird like mental game you're almost playing with yourself. But yeah I'm very excited for the weekend.
“I don't know, just keep swimming. My son, he's two years old, he's watching Finding Nemo and Dory says 'just keep swimming'.
“So I'm thinking 'just keep swimming, just keep swimming'."
Norgaard started the week seventh in The Race to Dubai Standings in Partnership with Rolex and well placed to claim one of ten PGA TOUR cards on offer for 2025.
“My main goal for these two to lock up that top ten and get that,” he said. “I just want to come down here and play some proper golf.
“That's the challenge in golf. It matters so much but trying to make it not matter, it's really difficult.
“Just trying to do what I do best, and just being in every shot instead of thinking about ranking and results and everything. So just been one shot at a time, and I've done that well these two days.”
