Padraig Harrington set about making inroads into Tiger Woods' lead at the CA World Championship this afternoon, two biridies within his first three holes leaving him four of the pace.

However, the Dubliner, who is on three-under and joint 13th, was unable to pick up any more shots after seven holes and with Woods not yet out there is plenty of work left for Harrington who will undoubtedly probably need to shoot in the sixties.

Elsewhere, Phil Mickelson became another victim of the 18th hole at Doral's Blue Monster course in Miami, just before Colin Montgomerie came a cropper there for the second day running.

Mickelson was out of contention after opening rounds of 77 and 72 - they left him 12 adrift of Woods - and so he found himself trying both to make the best of a bad job and to build confidence for his big week coming up.

On Thursday week, of course, Mickelson begins his defence of the Masters title, but he will not be going to Augusta in the same mood as he did a year ago.

Playing the first 17 holes in four under par was obviously a step in the right direction, but then the left-hander closed with a double bogey six, driving into rough and compounding the error by three-putting.

Just as Woods was setting off again to defend his two-shot overnight lead over Australian Rod Pampling, Mickelson handed in a 70 — his best round of the week, but one which showed he has a lot of work to do yet. And not much time to do it in if he wants a third green jacket in four years.

On Friday Montgomerie, having opened with a 75, worked so hard to move to level par and then gave it all away with a closing triple bogey seven.

The Scot, who has slipped to 20th in the world, returned to the hole one under for the day, but whereas it was his second shot in the second round which bounced into the water off the rocks by the green this time he found the lake with his drive.

A double bogey six resulted, giving Montgomerie a 73 and 54-hole total of 219, three over. Going much better was Paul Casey, who turned in 32 with birdies at the first, second, eight and ninth and improved 20 places on his overnight 39th.

Sergio Garcia was another to birdie the par five first and at four under he was in a tie for fourth with, among others, Henrik Stenson and Thomas Bjorn.