South
Africa's Retief Goosen kept his nose ahead of Padraig Harrington on another day
of low scoring at Montecastillo on Friday.
First round leader Goosen compiled a four-under-par 68 in a stiff wind but had
his three-shot first round lead trimmed to one by Irish Ryder Cup player Harrington.
The 28-year-old Dubliner
had an eventful round of 11 birdies against a double bogey and two bogeys for
a seven-under par 65 despite hitting into water at the seventh and 17th holes.
Goosen led with a 14-under-par
total of 130 with Harrington on 131.
After the end of the round, all the tournament players, officials and spectators
gathered for a minute's silence in memory of American golfer Payne Stewart, who
was killed in a plane crash on Monday.
German Bernhard Langer gave a brief address in a ceremony timed to coincide with
the funeral of Stewart at his home in Orlando, Florida.
"We
have all been blessed by knowing and spending time with Payne," part of his address
said.
Colin Montgomerie,
heading for a seventh consecutive European Order of Merit title, charged up the
leaderboard into a share of third spot with a 65 but was soon caught by four others,
Jose Coceres of Argentina, Michael Campbell of New Zealand, Spanish Ryder Cup
player Miguel Jimenez and Englishman Anthony Wall.
Coceres shot 64 while Campbell and Wall carded 65s and Jimenez a 67.
They are all on 135, five shots off the lead.
Goosen, the French Open champion, was pleased to keep his lead in the difficult
wind.
"It got up at the third
hole and the course played a lot tougher after that," said the South African,
who fired a 10-under-par 62 in Thursday's first round.
Harrington, growing in confidence since his Ryder Cup outing last month and with
three second-place finishes in recent weeks, called his experience "an adventurous
day".
"It was the most birdies
I've ever had," he added.
He was in water twice but chipped in from 30 feet at the sixth, sank a 35-foot
birdie putt at the 10th and made four other putts of between 12 and 20 feet.
The tournament had a surprising pacesetter for a brief moment when Myanmar golfer
Kyi Hla Ham fired a seven-under-par 65 to take the clubhouse lead.
Kyi, playing in the event on a special invitation from the sponsors, birdied all
four par fives and three other holes in a rock-solid round in which he did not
drop a shot.
But though his
65 left him on eight-under-par 136, better than any who preceded him, Montgomerie
came in two groups later to move one shot ahead of him.
Montgomerie, fully recovered from a migraine headache which affected him during
his first-round 70, was asked if the Montecastillo course was too easy for this
event.
"We were very fortunate
to play at Valderrama, the number one ranked course in Europe, for nine years
but after the Ryder Cup went there in 1997 we had to move.
"We
were spoiled there and unfortunately anywhere we went after that was a backward
step," he said.
"They were
unlucky here to have six months' rain in a week. That hindered the preparation
of the course and made it very soft and a lot easier. The fairways are much wider
and the ball is stopping dead on the greens."
Montgomerie is already some 430,000 pounds ($704,400) ahead of the pack in
the Order of Merit race, which will be decided at the American Express World Championship
next week -- in Valderrama where he won his only Volvo Masters title in 1993.
