Although the wind has not whipped in from the Firth of Forth yesterday’s conditions were damp and miserable

Although the wind has not whipped in from the Firth of Forth, yesterday’s conditions were damp and miserable. Woods moaned that the greens were too slow but it did not stop him charging four or five feet past the hole several times.He birdied the long 17th despite playing his third shot from the mound of a bunker. The smile returned as he advanced to four under par for the championship, only two strokes behind Els and the unsinkable Maruyama, who also had a 68 to move to six under overall.Meanwhile Rose, who, as a 17-year-old amateur, made such a huge impression in The Open at Birkdale in 1998, survived the halfway cut, but only just.. If there has been a running theme to the majors so far this season, apart from the obvious domination by Tiger Woods, it is the consistently dogged performances of Padraig Harrington.

Without threatening records, as Colin Montgomerie and Ernie Els did in the second round of the 131st Open Championship, Harrington worked himself into a share of the lead at six under par. At the same stage of the US Open, he was trailing only Woods, who here lurks two strokes off the pace.Montgomerie, whose relationship with the Open has been more hate than love over the years, set what is officially considered the new course record at Muirfield with a seven-under 64.
The score was 10 better than his effort on Thursday and his lowest ever in the Open. It stands as a record because the course has been lengthened by around 60 yards. Isao Aoki’s 63 in the 1980 Open, which shares the major championship record, remains the lowest score made at Muirfield.Els, so often Monty’s South African nemesis, went to the turn in 29, with seven birdies and two pars, to equal the second-best nine holes in the Open. The lowest was Denis Durnian’s 28 over the front nine at Royal Birkdale in 1983. His 66 set the clubhouse target subsequently matched by Shigeki Maruyama, Harrington, Bob Tway and Duffy Waldorf, the only one of the overnight co-leaders to retain his position. Waldorf added a 69 to his opening 67 while Tway, the former US PGA champion, had a 66 after holing from 20 feet for a par at the last.Harrington birdied three of the first four holes on his way to a 67 on a day of drizzly rain at Muirfield when the scoring was better than the previous day.

A two-putt birdie at the 17th put him into a share of the lead. Although Harrington halted alongside Woods in the third round at Bethpage and finished eighth, it was another impressive campaign to set beside his fifth place at the Masters.”Although we are halfway through the tournament,” Harrington said, “there is more than half the work to be done I enjoy putting myself in these positions. In a sick sense I like it.” As a notorious collector of second places, he does not always get the rewards to make it worthwhile. “The occasional success would do.”After two days with little breeze, high winds are expected over the weekend “I’m happy with anything,” said the Dubliner. “It would be a shame to play 72 holes of links golf without a wind but I might get blown away as well. I’ll take my chances in the wind.”Having reached eight under par after the ninth, Els dropped two shots coming home for a 66 to hold the early clubhouse lead at six under.