Karandeep Kochhar showed today why he has arrived here at the New Zealand Open presented by Millbrook Resort as one of the highest ranked players on the Asian Tour Order of Merit.

He returned a second-round four-under-par 67 on the Coronets course to move into contention on eight under. The Indian is just four off the clubhouse lead being set by New Zealand amateur Yuki Miya, who also fired a 67 on the same course – with the afternoon session still to finish.

Travis Smyth (63), like Kochhar an Asian Tour member, from Australia and New Zealand’s Daniel Hillier (68) are in second place, one behind Miya.

Kochhar is in fourth place on the Merit list, thanks to a fourth-place finish in the season-opening Philippine Golf Championship at the start of the month and after two testing days here it’s clear his game is back on track after a difficult few seasons.

He lost his Asian Tour card in 2024 and fought his way back last year by finishing in the top-10 on the Asian Development Tour (ADT) Order of Merit, which comes with the reward of a Tour card for the ensuing season,

Karandeep Kochhar in action at the Philippine Golf Championship . Picture by Graham Uden/Asian Tour.

“I have just stuck to my game plan and its paid off,” said the 26-year-old from Chandigarh.

“2024 was very tough for me. I don’t really know what happened, I felt like I put in the same amount of work. I worked on the same things but it’s just golf I guess. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn’t.

“I had a really good 2023, nearly won on The International Series, and so had high expectations for 2024. Things did not pan out the way I had hoped. I worked really hard to get back.”

A three-hour delay yesterday before play started, due to heavy rain, meant that almost half the field were unable to finish their first round by the time it got dark last night at 8.15.

Kochhar was one of those and had to come back early this morning to complete three holes. The inconvenience seemed to have little effect on him as a he birdied two of them before a second round featured an eagle, four birdies and two bogeys.

“I am not going to take any of this for granted. I know what it feels like to lose your card. I have changed nothing, I think it’s just phases,” he said.

“Perhaps the only thing that has changed is my confidence in my putting stroke, that’s got better. That’s helped me make a lot of putts.”

He is also unperturbed by not being able to win the Philippine Golf Championship where he was the third-round leader. He broke the course record on the East Course of Wack Wack Golf & Country Club on day three but shot a 77 on Sunday to finish eight behind the winner Wooyoung Cho from Korea.

He explained: “What’s done is done. If someone would have told me I would finish fourth I the first event of the year and be in contention here I would have taken it.

“I think I showed a lot of good signs in the Philippines. Even when I didn’t play well on the last day it was not much to do with me. I was unlucky here and there, but the game still felt good. I felt I didn’t really crack under pressure.”

He won in Egypt on the ADT last year and with what he says is a new-found confidence with his putting stroke Kochhar might well be in the thick of the action comes Sunday afternoon.

The New Zealand Open presented by Millbrook Resort is joint sanctioned by the Asian Tour and Challenger PGA Tour of Australasia, in partnership with the Japan Golf Tour. It is the second event of the season on the Asian Tour.