Friday 18 November 2016 12:52, UK
Henrik Stenson vowed to put in extra work on the practice range in Dubai as he reflected on a second-round 69 featuring two bizarre incidents at the DP World Tour Championship.
Stenson carded four birdies and just his second bogey of the tournament despite "not playing great", and he will go into the weekend on three under alongside Danny Willett, his closest rival for the Race to Dubai crown.
The Open champion looked perplexed when calling for a ruling on the second hole when somebody picked up his ball, and he was shaken on the 13th when a blocked his tee shot into the gallery, where a female spectator was struck on the head.
As the Swede offered his apologies before she headed off for treatment, the unfortunate spectator informed him that he was her favourite golfer, and Stenson said: "I didn't expect her to say that after being hit!
"It was a very unfortunate circumstance. I flared my five-iron right and I'm standing there thinking, is it going in the bunker or flying over the bunker, and next thing, I see it go into the crowd and hit someone. It was actually a miss-hit up into the wind into the right and it went further than the pin number, so something was quirky there.
"Unfortunately I hit the lady and she went down. But I had some reports later in the round that she was doing okay, and of course, you get shocked when you get hit like that and it's painful. Yeah, I'm just making sure that we're going to get her details so I can send her something nice."
On the bizarre incident on the second, he added: "I don't know if it was a marshal or who it was, but we hit it right short right of the green, and then we heard someone picked it up.
"So I don't know why anyone that enters a golf tournament is picking up a golf ball insides the ropes, that seems a bit weird to me. But it happens, unfortunately. I had to call for a ruling and then we estimated where it was supposed to be and dropped it there and on we go."
Stenson made only one birdie in his opening 72 that included 16 pars, but he attributed his second effort to a vast improvement on the greens as he moved to three under for the tournament.
"I'm definitely not playing great, but I had some more chances today and the putter was behaving a lot better than yesterday," he said. "I holed out nicely and made a few for birdie, so it was definitely the putter that kept it together.
"It's a bit of a grind, we're not playing our best but I'm hanging in there and fighting hard. I know the guys are going to come at me. I know it's going to be a long weekend and they are going to keep on pushing me. So I'm just trying to do my best, and I'm going to do a bit of practice; it's needed."
Willett, who trails Stenson by almost 300,000 points in the Race to Dubai standings, birdied two of the first three holes only to give both shots back with bogeys at five and seven.
But the Masters champion negotiated the remainder of his round error free and picked up further shots at the 14th and 16th to return a 70 that he believed should have been far lower had it not been for some poor putting.
"I hit it good again, but I've been very bad with the putter on the back nine," he said. "Just a shame to only take two out of the last six or seven holes so it's a bit frustrating, but there are two rounds left.
"Last week I was hitting it bad and that was frustrating, and this week I'm hitting it good and it's frustrating because the blade is not working. Things need to get back to going our way a little bit and there's a really good score not that far away."
