Golf:A birdie on the 18th moved Rory McIlroy to within two shots of halfway leader Hunter Mahan at the WGC-Cadillac Championship. Padraig Harrington is a further two adrift of the American as windy conditions made scoring difficult.
Martin Kaymer comfortably won the battle of the world's top three in Miami - but trying to catch Mahan is proving tougher so far. The 26-year-old German, only two weeks into his reign as golf's number one, reached halfway on eight under par and in joint second place with Francesco Molinari.
Third-ranked Luke Donald, the player who beat Kaymer in the final of the WGC-Accenture Match Play a fortnight ago, was five under, but Lee Westwood was twice in the water on the long eighth - their 17th - and with a double bogey seven tumbled down to level par with a 74.
Mahan, whose defeat to Graeme McDowell at Celtic Manor last October cost America the Ryder Cup, remained at the head of things.
After completing an opening 64 in the morning - most of the field had to return to Doral at breakfast time because of Thursday's storm delay - the 28-year-old California added a second-round 71 to stand nine under.
"I'm in a very good position," said Kaymer. "It was a very difficult morning and a tough afternoon, but I didn't make any bogeys today, so that's pretty good."
Mahan, four clear before he bogeyed the 14th and 16th, commented: "My game's good and I'm looking forward to the weekend. You've got to be patient here."
As for the other star group of McDowell, Tiger Woods and Phil Mickelson - four, five and six in the world - they all left themselves with a lot of ground to make up over the weekend.
McDowell birdied two of the last three holes to climb to two under, but Woods (74) and Mickelson (71) are only level par and outside the top 30 in the 66-strong field.
Kaymer and Molinari, who already has one world championship to his name like Mahan and Donald, ended the day one in front of McIlroy, Scot Martin Laird and Americans Matt Kuchar and Nick Watney.
Laird, based in the States since his college days and a winner on the PGA Tour two years ago, included a 45-foot putt on the short ninth and a 57-foot chip-in at the 16th in his 70.
It was no great surprise that Japan's Ryo Ishikawa fell back after starting with a 65 - the teenager woke to the news of the devastating earthquake and tsunami in his home country.
"My parents live some 250 miles away from the Tokyo area," he said. "The magnitude of 5.0 felt where my family lives is still a very big earthquake, so I just hope everybody else around will be safe as well.
"It is not possible to block something of this magnitude out completely. But I understand that in the position that I am, together with the other star athletes from Japan and other sporting areas, we can provide encouragement and hope for the people of Japan by doing our job."
Collated second round scores & totals
(USA unless stated, par 72):
135Hunter Mahan 64 71
136Francesco Molinari (Ita) 68 68, Martin Kaymer (Ger) 66 70
137Nick Watney 67 70, Rory McIlroy(NIrl) 68 69, Martin Laird (Sco) 67 70, Matt Kuchar 68 69
138Dustin Johnson 69 69, Aaron Baddeley (Aus) 72 66, Adam Scott (Aus) 68 70
139Steve Stricker 68 71, Ernie Els (Rsa) 69 70, Luke Donald (Eng) 67 72, Padraig Harrington(Irl) 68 71
140D.A. Points 68 72, Vijay Singh (Fij) 68 72, Anders Hansen (Den) 71 69, Kevin Streelman 68 72
141Ryo Ishikawa (Jpn) 65 76, Paul Casey (Eng) 70 71
142Robert Karlsson (Swe) 69 73, Seung-yul Noh (Kor) 72 70, Charley Hoffman 67 75, Bill Haas 74 68, Charl Schwartzel (Rsa) 71 71, K J Choi (Kor) 73 69, Camilo Villegas (Col) 71 71
143Thomas Aiken (Rsa) 68 75, Graeme McDowell(NIrl) 70 73, Kyung-tae Kim (Kor) 73 70, Miguel Angel Jimenez (Spa) 71 72, Ian Poulter (Eng) 73 70, Jhonattan Vegas 69 74
144Tiger Woods 70 74, Louis Oosthuizen (Rsa) 71 73, Hiroyuki Fujita (Jpn) 71 73, Phil Mickelson 73 71, Robert Allenby (Aus) 72 72, Thomas Bjorn (Den) 71 73, Jonathan Byrd 70 74, Rickie Fowler 71 73, Lee Westwood (Eng) 70 74, Ryan Moore 70 74, Edoardo Molinari (Ita) 71 73
145Retief Goosen (Rsa) 69 76, Jim Furyk 74 71, Ross Fisher (Eng) 69 76, Bo Van Pelt 71 74, Y.E. Yang (Kor) 73 72
146Peter Hanson (Swe) 73 73, Ryan Palmer 73 73, Shiv Shankar Prasad Chowrasia (Ind) 74 72
147Zach Johnson 72 75, Yuta Ikeda (Jpn) 74 73, Mark Wilson 72 75, Alvaro Quiros (Spa) 70 77, Jason Day (Aus) 71 76, Marcus Fraser (Aus) 69 78
148Rory Sabbatini (Rsa) 74 74, Justin Rose (Eng) 77 71, Peter Senior (Aus) 75 73
149Kevin Na 74 75, Rhys Davies (Wal) 73 76, Geoff Ogilvy (Aus) 76 73
152Jeff Overton 75 77
154Anthony Kim 80 74
