La Quinta (California), Jan 23 (IANS) Leading Indian golfer Anirban Lahiri dropped two positions to be tied third after scoring four-under 68 in the second round of the $5,800,000 CareerBuilder Challenge here.
The World No.41, who scored 68 in the first round, on Friday remained three strokes behind opening round co-leader Jason Dufner (65) of the United States. Dufner has a total of 15-under 129 after 36 holes of the Professional Golfers Association (PGA) Tour tournament in partnership with the Clinton Foundation.
Lahiri made par efforts on the opening three holes before making a hat-trick of birdies at the PGA WEST TPC Stadium Course. The 28-year-old then dropped two shots on the seventh and eighth before closing the front-nine with a birdie to move to two-under 34.
The Bengaluru player, who qualified for the PGA Tour after earning the top-25 place in the Web.Com Finals, sank an eagle on the par-five 11th and made another birdie on the 16th. A bogey on the 17th affected him and he closed the round with another par effort on the 18th for a 68.
Leader Dufner rode on a sensational front-nine performance that saw him score six birdies to top the table. The 38-year-old World No.120 picked two birdies along with a bogey on the back-nine for a 65.
Dufner was one stroke ahead of his compatriot Jamie Lovemark, who has two 65s so far. The third place was shared by Lahiri, Adam Hadwin of Canada, Jason Gore, Andrew Loupe and Bill Haas.
Following them by one stroke were the likes of Ryan Palmer and Phil Mickelson.