The second round of the PGA Championship turned into a second chance for Vijay Singh and Colin Montgomerie.
Both of them know the pain of coming close to winning their first major. By keeping it straight and simple at Sahalee Country Club, both of them got into contention once again Friday.Singh made five birdies on the first nine holes and matched the course record that Tiger Woods set the day before, a 4-under-par 66 that put him at 136 going into the weekend.
"Each year you play, you gain a little more experience, a lot more know-how to handle a situation like I'm in now," said Singh, who came up two strokes short of a playoff in the 1993 PGA Championship.
Right behind him was Montgomerie, in pursuit of his first major championship and in contention for the first time since he lost by one stroke to Ernie Els in the U.S. Open last year.
He made three key par saves in a round of 67 that put him at 137, along with Scott Gump and Steve Stricker.
"I haven't come over here to finish second," said Montgomerie, who has done just that in three previous majors. "The hardest thing to do is get into contention. We'll go from there."
The high, heavenly ground of Sahalee was full of high hopes for a couple of players chasing history.
Davis Love III is trying to become the only repeat winner since the PGA went to stroke play in 1958 and the first since Denny Shute in 1937. He worked his way into the hunt with a 2-under 68.
That left him just two strokes back at 138, along with Woods, Brad Faxon, Andrew Magee and former PGA champion Steve Elk-ing-ton.
And never count out Mark O'Meara, undaunted by the pressure of trying to become the first player since Ben Hogan in 1953 to win three majors in one season.
Just like he did in winning the Masters and the British Open, the 41-year-old O'Meara just plugged along until making a thrilling move that thrust him to 3-under, one off the lead.
O'Meara threaded the "goal post" trees guarding the par-5 11th green with a 3-iron, then holed a 15-footer from just on the fringe for eagle that drew him within one stroke of the lead.
He dropped back with bogeys at the 12th and 15th holes and finished with a 70 for 139, just three strokes back but in good shape for the weekend. O'Meara was five back midway through the Masters, and three back after two rounds at Royal Birkdale.
"He is unflappable," said Love, paired with O'Meara the first two days. "The crowd was yelling to him, `Make it three!' He wouldn't let the crowd bother him."
Woods couldn't hold a first-round lead for the second straight major. He followed a 65 in the British Open with a 73. And one day after making seven birdies at Sahalee, he didn't get his first until the 16th.
"I made a lot of putts just to hang in there," Woods said. "I'm only two back, and that's perfect. That's where I need to be."
Stricker became only the fourth player to reach 5-under at Sahalee, but it didn't last long. After four birdies on the first seven holes on the back nine gave him the lead, he took double bogey at No. 17 when he hit 5-iron into the water.
"It was an up-and-down day, but the course will do that," Stricker said.
Indeed, a tight, tree-lined Sahalee made for a wide-open weekend - 13 players are within three shots of Singh. Only three of the 20 players who broke par in the first round managed to shoot in the 60s on Friday - Stricker, Gump and Elkington.
And of the the 14 players under par, only David Frost managed to play the back without a bogey.
"The key to winning a major is you need to peak at the right time," Singh said. "I played well last week and I'm playing well again. All I need to do is go out there and do what I did today."
As Woods proved Friday, that's not always easy.
He left the driver in his bag once again, but that wasn't the problem. Woods missed a 5-foot birdie putt on the second hole, three-putted on No. 4 and took another bogey after hitting his 3-wood into the rough on the 480-yard, par-4 sixth.
He had a three-putt bogey on No. 15 from 25 feet. Woods took 34 putts on Friday, after needing 27 the day before.
Singh, who has won five times on the PGA Tour and 18 other times around the world, was a relative unknown in the PGA in 1993 when he finished out of the playoff at Inverness, which Paul Azinger won over Greg Norman.
The one area he has scaled back on is the long hours that he puts in on the driving range.
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ADDITIONAL INFORMATION
PGA Championship leaderboard
Vijay Singh 70-66-136
Colin Montgomerie 70-67-137
Scott Gump 68-69-137
Steve Stricker 69-68-137
Steve Elkington 69-69-138
Andrew Magee 70-68-138
Brad Faxon 70-68-138
Tiger Woods 66-72-138
Davis Love III 70-68-138