Casandra Alexander continued her excellent form on Friday at the KPMG Women’s Irish Open following up yesterday’s course-record with a six-under-par 66 to pull five shots clear.

Having entered the history books in the first round with a scintillating nine-under-par 63 on the Palmer South at The K-Club, Alexander was on course-record watch again early doors when she started eagle-birdie-birdie at the 10th, 11th and 12th.

The big-hitting South African would drop a shot at the 13th before bouncing back with a birdie at the 17th to make the turn in 32 – six shots ahead of her opponents. A second eagle of the day came shortly after at the third before Alexander gave a shot back to the chasing pack at the 6th. A bounce-back birdie followed to complete a round of 66 (-6) as the world number 38 moved to 15-under par.

“Not as tidy as yesterday,” the South African said. “I left some putts right in the throat and had some awkward wedge numbers. But overall pretty good. It was always going to be hard to follow up yesterday’s round. Sometimes that’s really difficult to get two days really flowing and going. Two eagles helped the situation. Six-under, I’m very happy.

“My caddie said to me after yesterday, if we can just get a red number on day two that would be pretty good because your expectations always go up after you shoot nine-under. I then started eagle-birdie-birdie… I just looked at my caddie [Douglas], laughed and said, ‘Shut up, let’s go to the next tee! Let’s move on.’”

Alexander currently leads the Ladies European Tour (LET) Order of Merit with five runner-up finishes to her name. A one-time winner on the circuit, a victory which came at last year’s Tipsport Czech Ladies Open, Alexander finished T10 at The Amundi Evian Championship last month before having a difficult stretch in the UK by her own high standards.

“Consistency is key,” the 27-year-old said. “I’ve shown that I have that. I did say at the beginning of the week, if we are going to win, we’re going to make sure we win by a few because I’m not going to leave it up to chance. We’ve come short a few times but they’ve all been different situations. Winning golf tournaments is important, but the Order of Merit is something which is really important. It’s something only a few have achieved. It shows you’ve played well over the whole year but I definitely need to get a couple of wins before we get to that.”

In a tie for second on 10-under par sit Sara Kouskova from the Czech Republic and Brianna Navarrosa of the USA. The former, a two-time LET winner, matched Alexander’s 66 on Friday to shoot up the leaderboard and continue her fine summer.