Nick Price rolled in a 30-foot birdie putt at the final hole Friday to shoot a 4-under 68 and take a two-shot lead after two rounds of the $2.5 million Players Championship.
Price, who won more than $1 million on the PGA Tour last year and captured his first major title in August by winning the PGA Championship, posted a 36-hole total of 12-under 132 at the TPC-Sawgrass course.Another day of ideal scoring conditions allowed a record-setting assault on par to continue at the famed course, where Price and Kirk Triplett equaled the 18-hole record of 64 Thursday.
Doug Tewell, Dave Rummels and Bernhard Langer were all at 10-under while Joel Edwards was alone at 9-under.
Greg Norman and Joey Sindelar were among those at 8-under. Masters champion Fred Couples was at 5-under 139 after a 68 Thursday and defending Players champion Davis Love was at 5-under following a 69.
Triplett needed 14 more shots to get around the course Friday than he did Thursday and finished at 2-under 142.
It took a score of 2-under or better to survive the 36-hole cut. Among those missing the final two rounds will be leading money winner Tom Kite, Curtis Strange, Hale Irwin, Mark Calcavecchia, Ben Crenshaw, Phil Mickelson, Jose Maria Olazabal and John Daly.
Daly shot a 79 to begin the tournament and missed the cut despite shooting a 6-under 66 Friday.
Price credited his sensational play during the past 18 months to an improved mental attitude.
"I've really worked hard the last two to three years on playing only the shot I'm faced with," Price said. "One of the things I used to do was get ahead of myself, but I'm probably playing as well as I have the last 18 months because I've been so disciplined in sticking with the shot I'm playing.
"I know it sounds boring, but it's working for me."
At Kingwood, Texas, Jim Albus sank eight birdies, including five on the back nine, to post a 6-under 66 and grab a two-shot lead after the first round of the Senior PGA Doug Sanders Kingwood Celebrity Classic.
Albus, a tournament winner five weeks ago in Tampa, Fla., had a 32 on the back nine and didn't have a putt of more than 10 feet for his entire round.
Bob Murphy, a Senior Tour rookie making his third start, and Larry Mowry, who tied for second in last year's Sanders event, were at 4-under 68, two shots back, followed by Miller Barber, Bob Charles and DeWitt Weaver at 69.
Two-time defending champion Mike Hill was in a group at 70.
At Rancho Mirage, Calif., Nancy Lopez struggled to a 78 - including a two-stroke penalty for slow play - to drop back into the pack, and Pat Bradley charged into a share of the lead with a second-round 69 in the Dinah Shore tournament.
Bradley, like Lopez a member of the LPGA's Hall of Fame, was in a group of four at 4-under-par 140 through 36 holes of the tournament, one of the women's major championships.
Also tied at the top were Marta Figueras-Dotti of Spain, Helen Alfredsson of Sweden, and Dawn Coe-Jones.