{"id":236271,"date":"2025-10-31T16:52:08","date_gmt":"2025-10-31T16:52:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/236271\/"},"modified":"2025-10-31T16:52:08","modified_gmt":"2025-10-31T16:52:08","slug":"hong-kong-open-tom-mckibbin-leads-as-he-chases-masters-spot-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/236271\/","title":{"rendered":"Hong Kong Open: Tom McKibbin leads as he chases Masters spot"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Tom McKibbin&#8217;s bid to qualify for next year&#8217;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.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">The player from Northern Ireland opened the tournament on the Asian Tour with <a href=\"https:\/\/www.bbc.com\/sport\/golf\/articles\/cy7epyn34k5o\" class=\"ssrcss-k8mrr8-InlineLink e1kn3p7n0\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">a course record of 60<\/a> at Fanling. <\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">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<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">McKibbin, who joined LIV Golf earlier this year, began his second round with two birdies in his opening three holes. <\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">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<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">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<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">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<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Northern Ireland&#8217;s Graeme McDowell missed the cut in Hong Kong after he finished four under after 36 holes. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Tom McKibbin&#8217;s bid to qualify for next year&#8217;s Masters and Open Championship continued in impressive fashion when he&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":236209,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[39],"tags":[5904,101,56,54,55],"class_list":{"0":"post-236271","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-golf","8":"tag-golf","9":"tag-sports","10":"tag-uk","11":"tag-united-kingdom","12":"tag-unitedkingdom"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/236271","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=236271"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/236271\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/236209"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=236271"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=236271"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=236271"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}