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Josh Geary has made the cut at the European Tour's Belgian Knockout event. (FILE PIC)

There were mixed fortunes for the two New Zealand golfers at the European Tour's inaugural Belgian Knockout event on Saturday morning (NZT).

Josh Geary's second-round one-under 70 was enough for him to make the cut, but Ryan Fox's even-par 70 wasn't, as he was eventually eliminated in a dramatic playoff.

Geary followed up his opening-round 69 at the Rinkven International Golf Club with three birdies (holes two, four and five) and two bogeys (holes one and 17) to sit in a six-way tie for 18th and comfortably through to the weekend.

Following his first-up 71, Fox then struggled to make an impact in his second round, bogeying the first, sixth, ninth, 10th and 11th holes. He birdied the fourth, then had a hot finish with birdies at 13, 14, 16 and 17, which kept him in contention in the form of a playoff.

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In order to whistle the 144-man field down to 64 for the knockout stages, the 56 players at par or better automatically advanced, but the 11 players tied at one-over were split into a five-ball and a six-ball group and went to the 10th tee to find the eight players who would go through.

But Fox sent his tee-shot a long way right and while he found his ball, he had to chip out onto the ninth ladies tee and ended up holing in six, which saw him eliminated straight away.

The knockout matches will be played over nine holes in a stroke play format, with the player going lowest in their match then progressing to the next round.

Geary, ranked 1281 in the world, faces world No 809 Anders Hansen, of Denmark, in the first round of the knockout stages.

 - Stuff