England's Paul Casey quickly added yet another birdie this morning to take a four-stroke lead into the third round of the Telefonica Madrid Open.
Left with three holes of his second round to complete because of a two-hour frost delay yesterday, Casey hit a nine-iron to within a foot of the flag on the 167-yard 17th.
Pars either side of that gave the 26-year-old, seventh on the European Order of Merit this season, a six-under-par 65 to tag on to his opening 63 - and that meant a superb 14-under-par halfway total of 128.
Swede Robert Karlsson stood 10 under after a 67, while joint third one further back were Scots Paul Lawrie and Stephen Gallacher and Australian Peter Fowler.
"It was nice to pick up another shot," said Casey. "It was absolutely freezing again and it would have been easy to let one slip.
"I'm going to set myself a number of something like 10 under for the weekend rather than worry about the guys behind."
Sergio Garcia and Lee Westwood both bogeyed the first hole when the third round got under way after lunch. For Garcia a missed seven-foot putt meant he was eight adrift of Casey and Westwood fell nine behind.
Padraig Harrington, twice a winner on the course, birdied the same hole, but bogeyed the short third and needed another birdie at the 518-yard fourth to be alongside Westwood again.
Gary Murphy is the only other Irish contender in the field after Peter Lawrie, Paul McGinley and Graeme McDowell all failed to make the halfway cut. With nine holes to play, Murphy is one under for the tournament and needs to pick up some birdies if he is to force his way into contention.