Nomura Cup: Chinese Taipei are soaring at halfway stage

Non-playing captain Tim Sung says his young Chinese Taipei team have “just come here for learning”. But at the halfway stage of the 27th Nomura Cup at Yas Links Abu Dhabi, it is turning into more than just a learning exercise.

After sharing the first-round lead with Japan on Thursday, Chinese Taipei shocked even themselves by forging to a five-stroke buffer atop the leaderboard yesterday.

Led by Chiu Han-ting’s 65, the lowest round of the day, the Chinese Taipei quartet returned a best three of four card team aggregate of 209 (-7) in Round 2.

That left Sung’s team with a 36-hole total of 407, a combined 25 under par. Japan are second on 412 while Thailand head into today’s third round in the bronze medal position on 419, 12 shots off the pace.

Chinese Taipei’s form should not come as a surprise given they had won the gold medal at last year’s Asian Games in South Korea.

But Sung is still surprised.

“I didn’t expect we can win this tournament even though we were the champions from last year at the Asian Games,” he said. “The Nomura Cup is more competition with Australia and New Zealand, Japan, South Korea – they are all good teams. We have only one player from the Asia Games and two very young, inexperienced players.

“After two rounds, 25 under par, that’s pretty nice but the tournament is only halfway so we will see. Whatever the result is it is very good experience for them, we have just come here for learning.”

Sung added that the aim now was to ensure the players kept their feet on the ground and did not look too far ahead with two days of action still to go.

“In any tournament you don’t really know if you have a chance to win until the last nine holes,” he said.

The UAE endured a tough day, left-handed teenager Ahmed Skaik’s 79 the highlight as the hosts go into today’s action on 31 over.

Rashid Hamood (80), Khalid Yousuf (82) and Abdulla Al Qubaisi (86) are the other members of the UAE team.

The first teams are due to tee off at 6.30am today in the third round.

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