Justin Rose and Bill Haas finished the day tied at the top of the leaderboard following the second round of the Arnold Palmer Invitational in Orlando.
Rose had led at the end of the first round but dropped two shots today en route to a second-round 70 – in contrast to Haas, who produced an impressive 66. The pair were one ahead of John Huh.
Defending champion Tiger Woods had looked to be challenging for a top spot but gusty winds down the back nine scuppered his bid, with three bogeys in the final three holes.
Friday was also notable for Phil Mickelson’s failure to make the cut, the four-time major winner producing an error-strewn 79 including two triple-bogeys.
So too Brandt Snedeker, whose final two holes – and the end of his tournament – were marked with a double and triple bogey.
Rose had shot a 65 in the opening round to end the day two ahead of Huh with John Rollins and Brad Fritsch a further stroke adrift.
Rose enjoyed a good start on Friday, picking up four shots to head the leaderboard but bogeys at the 14th and 18th pegged him back.
Haas, though, enjoyed a flawless round with an eagle on the par-five 16th as well as four birdies for a 66.
Huh collected birdies on the fifth and seventh holes and, although he dropped a shot on the 11th, he picked up two more on the final three holes to finish with a 69.
Woods initially made an ideal return to the course today with a birdie at the first and an eagle at the sixth.
He picked up two further shots at the 11th and 13th, but his hopes of a clean round went with those three straight closing bogeys to finish the day in a three-way tie for seventh.
That was one adrift of Ken Duke, Jimmy Walker and JJ Henry who were tied for third.
Woods said: “I played way better than what I scored today.
“I missed a couple of short ones, and I had a rough finish.
“The good news is we’ve got 36 holes to go.
“I’ve sort of made my share of mistakes on the last few holes the last couple days, and I need to clean that up.”
Rose was satisfied with his effort and emphasised the need to not look ahead. He told pgatour.com: “I just stay with my game the whole day, at this stage of the tournament you are just trying to tick along.
“Tomorrow same thing, just be patient, let the round evolve and put yourself in a position for Sunday.”
The Englishman denied the weather had had any real impact, adding: “Yesterday morning was way tougher than today; the course was there for the taking today for the most part.
“I felt I ticked along nicely today, towards the end it got a little bit tricky with a little bit of rain and the greens got a little bit greasy but for the most part it was playable and quite a nice day.
“It only really started raining heavily on 18 and I felt I got a flyer with my nine iron.
“Those things you can’t really account for – you are not 100% sure if the greens have changed speed – maybe that got to me a little bit on the 18th green.
“That is a bit of a mental error giving one away there but all in all happy with the day, happy with the progress.”
