Harrington leads the field from hassan2golftrophy.com

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Producing the best score of the day with a 67 to top the leader-board at 6 under par, the Irish Padraig Harrington sang in the rain and took his distance in the professional ranking of Hassan II Golf Trophy By Emaar, on Thursday (second day) in Royal Golf Dar Es Salam of Rabat.

The European No 2 who affirmed that he still has stiffness in his neck, ended up with a triple birdie in the last three holes. With 1 bogey, 7 birdies and 29 puts out of 18 holes, the last winner of the British Open leads by 3 strokes, the American Mark O’Meara, and the Britishs David Howell and Simon Dyson, all the three recorded a score of 70, i.e. (-3). The Indian Jeev Milkha Singh, the French Raphaël Jacquelin and the North Irish Darren Clarke ended the day with -2, and the Spanish Fernando Roca with -1. On the whole, thirteen players are level and eight below par.

With a score card of 74 (+1), Fayçal Serghini is ranked first Moroccan (14th at the end of the first day), followed by Younès El Hassani (16th), with a score of 75, and finally comes Abdelhaq Sabi, 22nd with a card of 78, i.e. (+5).

As for Lalla Meryem Cup, dedicated to ladies, the French Gwladys Nocera returned a card of 70 and is two strokes lead on her rival Virginia Lagoutte-Clement and the Spanish Paula Marti Zambrano. Gwladys, who declared to be delighted to take part in this tournament, on a very competitive course, succeeded 7 birdies but conceded 2 bogeys and a double bogey. With a total of 73, that is level par, Mounya Amalou Sayeh, the only Moroccan lady pro competing, holds the 4th place at the end of this first round.

In the Pro-Am, the teams led by the North Irish Darren Clarke (Adnane Rhazali, Mamoun Bennani and Carlos Silva) and the Morrocan Fayçal Serghini (Najib Benameur, Nabil Tajmouati and Khalid Chourouate) have both returned a scorecard of 132, which moves their two rounds score into 267 net strokes.

They are currently in tie ranking with the Harrington’s team (Pierre Galvan, Hassan Abassy and Stéphane Grizot), performer of a 135 stroke score on Thursday.

As for the gross score, Harrington and his players are leading the first place with 281 strokes (139 strokes in the 2nd round), followed by the the English Davis Mark’s team, with (Hassan Mansouri, Mounir Doghmi and Moulay Rachid Alaoui) and Gary Evans (Didier Morello, Michel Lusa and William Kohn), who scored a total of 285 strokes in the two rounds.

The first day’s ladies play was good enough for the team of the French pro Patricia Miller-Lebouc, which includes the ladies amateurs Marie-Laure Devaux, Ito Nejjai and Siham Souiri, as they ranked at the top of the list at the end of the first day with a gross 149 and net 138.