Cormac Sharvin continued to embrace the pressure of the home crowd at Lahinch to move right into contention at the halfway stage of his Irish Open challenge.
The Ardglass professional followed an opening round of 66 with a rock-solid one-under par 69 to ensure lunch tasted sweet in the clubhouse, with the 26-year old sitting inside the top-5 at minus-five.
With the whole field struggling this morning in a much different test to day one, Sharvin opened with a bogey before rolling off seven straight pars and picked up a first birdie of the day at the ninth to be out in 34.
The 2015 GB&I Walker Cup star found another gain on 16 and despite dropping a shot at the penultimate hole, he bounced back with a two-putt birdie at the par-5 18th to cap a fine second round performance.
Sharvin will be looking to ride the wave of momentum into the weekend to give the home fans something to cheer at the famous surf town of County Clare as he currently heads the Irish charge with Padraig Harrington, +3 for his round through 15, dropping down the board on day two.
Sharvin, who’s enjoyed a new-found consistency this term with top-5 finishes coming in Prague and France on the Challenge Tour, will be aware of just how important a strong weekend could be to his season’s outlook.
He needs to finish inside the top-10 this week and in the top-3 of players not already qualified for The Open to secure a spot at Portrush in two weeks’ time. For now though, Sharvin will be focussed on the job at hand knowing that if he can just keep doing what he’s doing, the rest should take care of itself.
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