Denmark’s Jeff Winther took advantage of a favourable draw to take a two-stroke lead after round two of the Commercial Bank Qatar Masters at Education City Golf Club.
Winther started his round at 6:45am local time and fired a second successive 67 to move to 8-under-par.
As the day went on the wind picked up and none of the players in the afternoon wave were able to catch Winther, with Jamie Donaldson, Jack Senior, Darren Fichardt, Kalle Samooja and former Oman Open winner Kurt Kitayama all two shots back.
“I love coming back here and I have good memories from last year,” said Winther, who finished one shot outside the play-off between Jorge Campillo and David Drysdale 12 months ago.
“I really like this course, it’s great to play and the conditions are fantastic. The greens are very nice. I don’t want to jinx myself but I think they are easy to putt on – they are very true.
“The wind got quite severe and we were lucky. On the last three or four holes it was really starting to pick up.”
2014 Ryder Cup star Donaldson is a former champion in Abu Dhabi, but has not tasted victory since the Asian Tour’s Thailand Golf Championship in December 2015.
“I played nicely, hit a lot of good shots and gave myself quite a lot of chances,” said the Welshman.
“I’m feeling pretty good. It took a while for the wrist operation to get back to normal. I started playing decent again in the middle of last year and I’ve been playing well recently. Feeling happy, just need more of the same tomorrow.”
