Golf:Pádraig Harrington must have felt like he was stuck in the mud for all he could do on the second day of the Nedbank Golf Challenge was look on as a pair of Englishmen fleeted past him on the leaderboard.
The three-time major winner fired an excellent opening round of 66 to assume the overnight lead, but what a difference a day made, as Harrington struggled to get under par and eventually had to settle for a level par 72 at the Gary Player Country Club in Sun City.
There were no such problems for world number one Lee Westwood, who raced into a commanding three shot lead with an exemplary eight under par 64 to set the halfway target on 12 under 132.
Harrington was overtaken by another Englishman as Ross Fisher's 68 was good enough to move the Irish Open champion into outright second on nine under.
Harrington, seeking his second win of the season, could only manage two nines of level par 36. The front nine contained a dropped shot at the third before he got back on level terms with a birdie at the par five ninth. From there he came home with nine straight pars.
At six under the 39-year-old was joined in a tie for third alongside Ryder Cup team mates, Miguel Angel Jimenez (69) and Edoardo Molinari (67). Ernie Els moved up to sixth in the 12-man field after a 68 left the home favourite five under.
Westwood appears to be handling his number one status with ease and displayed all the attributes associated with the top ranked player in the game. His round was blemish free and a card showing a natural symmetry with four birdies on each nine and the rest pars.
“I haven’t played a lot recently, so I still feel a bit rusty,” Westwood said. “But today was great, it was about getting the most out of the round. Unlike yesterday when I started with one over through six and that’s just what I’ve been doing in the last few weeks because I haven’t been competitive and haven’t been playing competitive golf.
“I seem to have gotten into the smooth of things now, my mind is also on the right things and that was the result today.”
Molinari, who was pleased with his effort after moving up alongside Harrington and Jimenez, paid tribute to Westwood, saying: “He’s the world number one and has been playing great golf the last two seasons. So I think he deserves the position that he is in right now.”
Collated second round scores and totals in the Nedbank Golf Challenge, Gary Player Country Club, Sun City, Johannesburg, South Africa
(Rsa unless stated, Irish in bold, par 72):
132Lee Westwood (Eng) 68 64
135Ross Fisher (Eng) 67 68
138Miguel Angel Jimenez (Spa) 69 69, Pádraig Harrington (Irl) 66 72, Edoardo Molinari (Ita) 71 67
139Ernie Els 71 68
140Robert Allenby (Aus) 70 70, Tim Clark 73 67
142Justin Rose (Eng) 70 72, Retief Goosen 72 70, Anders Hansen (Den) 72 70
144Louis Oosthuizen 71 73