{"id":21866,"date":"2025-11-01T06:52:08","date_gmt":"2025-11-01T06:52:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/sport\/hong-kong-open-tom-mckibbin-leads-as-he-chases-masters-spot\/"},"modified":"2025-11-01T06:52:08","modified_gmt":"2025-11-01T06:52:08","slug":"hong-kong-open-tom-mckibbin-leads-as-he-chases-masters-spot","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/sport\/hong-kong-open-tom-mckibbin-leads-as-he-chases-masters-spot\/","title":{"rendered":"Hong Kong Open: Tom McKibbin leads as he chases Masters spot"},"content":{"rendered":"


\n<\/p>\n

\n

Tom McKibbin’s bid to qualify for next year’s Masters and Open Championship continued in impressive fashion when he carded a second-round 65 to lead the Hong Kong Open by two shots at the midway point.<\/b><\/p>\n

The player from Northern Ireland opened the tournament on the Asian Tour with a course record of 60<\/a> at Fanling. <\/p>\n

While he could not quite hit the same heights on Friday, his bogey-free five-under-par round kept him two shots clear of American Peter Uihlein and Thailand duo Kiradech Aphibarnrat and Jazz Janewattananond.<\/p>\n

McKibbin, who joined LIV Golf earlier this year, began his second round with two birdies in his opening three holes. <\/p>\n

The 22-year-old reeled off three more birdies in a row from the 12th and is 15 under at the halfway stage.<\/p>\n

The winner of the event will qualify for the 2026 Masters, while the highest-placed non-exempt player who makes the cut will earn a place in the field for the 154th Open at Royal Birkdale in July.<\/p>\n

McKibbin has never played in the Masters at Augusta National and he failed to make the cut at The Open at Royal Portrush in July.<\/p>\n

Northern Ireland’s Graeme McDowell missed the cut in Hong Kong after he finished four under after 36 holes. <\/p>\n<\/div>\n


\n
Source link <\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Tom McKibbin’s bid to qualify for next year’s Masters and Open Championship continued in impressive fashion when he carded a second-round 65 to lead the Hong Kong Open by two shots at the midway point. The player from Northern Ireland opened the tournament on the Asian Tour with a course record of 60 at Fanling. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":21867,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[14],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-21866","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-golf"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/sport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21866","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/sport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/sport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/sport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/sport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=21866"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/sport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21866\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":21868,"href":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/sport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21866\/revisions\/21868"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/sport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/21867"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/sport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=21866"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/sport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=21866"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/sport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=21866"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}