If Davis Love wins his first Open championship on Sunday one moment in his second round on Friday will be replayed on television time and time again.

When the 39-year-old's drive down the long 14th at Royal St George's bounced sharply right his reaction was instant.

"Oh no," said Love.

But the ball, heading for out of bounds, kissed one of the white posts that lines the hole and came back into play.

"I didn't see it happen, but the guy (a marshal) put his hand up to indicate it was good and then somebody told my caddie it hit the stake.

"It was a great break - it saved me a stroke or two."

And that stroke or two enabled Love to go on and complete a 72 and reach halfway on the one under par total of 141.

On another day of challenging winds and pin placings which Love and others described as the toughest they had ever seen, that was good enough to take him into the weekend two in front of Dane Thomas Bjorn and little-known South Korean SK Ho.

For a while it looked as though Tiger Woods might become the man to catch, but the world number one, recovering brilliantly from his opening triple bogey seven on Thursday to be one under after eight holes, four-putted the 381-yard 12th and finished in a tie for 11th spot four behind.

Joint fourth on two over are Scotland's Alastair Forsyth, Sergio Garcia, last year's runner-up Thomas Levet, first day leader Hennie Otto, Americans Kenny Perry and Ben Curtis and Paraguayan Marco Ruiz, another who was on nobody's list of likely contenders before the off.

Disappointed not to be with them or even closer to Love was Sheffield's Mark Roe, who in a simply sensational start had six successive threes - an eagle and three birdies amongst them - and then a birdie four at the long seventh.

The 40-year-old, who had opened with a 77, was up to level par and joint third at that point, but he lost a ball on the 14th, took eight and finished five over.

Love, joint second after his opening 69, birdied the seventh and ninth for an outward 34, but although he picked up another shot at the short 11th there were also bogeys at the 10th, 12th and 17th, where he needed two attempts to get out of a greenside bunker.

Bjorn has cause to remember the bunkers on that hole too. His first round 73 included a two-stroke penalty for hitting the sand after failing to splash out first time.

Without that he would be sharing top spot.

For the first half of the day Forsyth held the clubhouse lead on his Open debut - indeed his major debut - after a superb 70.

Forsyth, one of the rising stars of European golf, commented: "Obviously there's a long way to go, but I played great. Conditions were not as windy as yesterday, but they were still pretty tough."

He had only one bogey all day and made a great save from a greenside bunker at the last to make lunch taste all the sweeter.

The 27-year-old from Paisley is certainly a player in form, finishing second in both the Diageo Championship at Gleneagles last month and the European Open two weeks ago.

Eighteen months ago he did not even hold a European tour card, but then came victory in the Malaysian Open in March last year and he is currently seventh on the Order of Merit.

Levet, beaten only at the fifth hole of a play-off at Muirfield last year, stood three under with nine to play, but also had a four-putt double bogey like woods. In his case it came on the 10th.

Only one player bettered Forsyth's round, defending champion Ernie Els hitting back from his opening 78 with a 68 to stand four over and back in contention.

At the Masters in April Els began with a 79 and followed with a 66. He had a chance to pull off an amazing victory there, but eventually finished joint sixth.

Ho and American Scott McCarron also led during the day, but McCarron then had three bogeys and a triple bogey seven on the 428-yard 17th, where he totally shanked a little pitch. He finished three over.

It was no disgrace. As Levet said: "You can do nine bogeys in a row on the back nine without doing anything wrong."

Among those who missed the cut, which fell at eight over, were Jose Maria Olazabal, Lee Westwood, Bernhard Langer, US Open champion Jim Furyk, English youngsters Justin Rose, Paul Casey and Luke Donald - 13 over playing with Woods for the first time - and former winners Paul Lawrie, Justin Leonard, David Duval and Sandy Lyle.

Nick Faldo made it with nothing to spare on his 46th birthday, grabbing a birdie at the difficult 17th.

There will be no amateurs in the final 36 holes, British champion Gary Wolstenholme, American title-holder Ricky Barnes and Cornwall's Scott Godfrey all bowing out.

Collated second-round scores (Gbr & Irl unless stated, par 71, (x) denotes amateur):

141 Davis Love III (USA) 69 72

143 SK Ho (Kor) 70 73, Thomas Bjorn (Den) 73 70

144 Alastair Forsyth 74 70, Ben Curtis (USA) 72 72, Hennie Otto (Rsa) 68 76, Thomas Levet (Fra) 71 73, Sergio Garcia (Spa) 73 71, Kenny Perry (USA) 74 70, Marco Ruiz (Par) 73 71

145 Vijay Singh (Fij) 75 70, Scott McCarron (USA) 71 74, Mathias Gronberg (Swe) 71 74, Tiger Woods (USA) 73 72, Chad Campbell (USA) 74 71

146 Fredrik Jacobson (Swe) 70 76, Craig Parry (Aus) 73 73, Phil Mickelson (USA) 74 72, Nick Price (Zim) 74 72, Ernie Els (Rsa) 78 68, Andrew Oldcorn 72 74, Peter Lonard (Aus) 73 73, Gary Evans 71 75, Fred Couples (USA) 71 75, Phillip Price 74 72, Stuart Appleby 75 71, Mark Foster 73 73

147 Gary Murphy 73 74, Chris Smith (USA) 74 73, Jose Coceres (Arg) 77 70, Markus Brier (Aut) 76 71, Charles Howell III (USA) 71 76, Jesper Parnevik (Swe) 72 75, Mark Roe 77 70

148 Ian Woosnam 73 75, Bob Estes (USA) 77 71, JL Lewis (USA) 78 70, Adam Mednick (Swe) 76 72, Mathew Goggin (Aus) 76 72, Tom Watson (USA) 71 77, Angel Cabrera (Arg) 75 73, Robert Allenby (Aus) 73 75, Retief Goosen (Rsa) 73 75, Greg Norman (Aus) 69 79, Padraig Harrington 75 73, Raphael Jacquelin (Fra) 77 71, John Rollins 72 76

149 KJ Choi (Kor) 77 72, John Daly (USA) 75 74, Len Mattiace (USA) 74 75, Pierre Fulke (Swe) 77 72, Anthony Wall 75 74, David Lynn 73 76, Shingo Katayama (Jpn) 76 73, Duffy Waldorf (USA) 76 73, Katsuyoshi Tomori (Jpn) 72 77, Tom Byrum (USA) 77 72, Skip Kendall (USA) 73 76

150 Mark McNulty (Zim) 79 71, Brad Faxon (USA) 77 73, Rich Beem (USA) 76 74, Michael Campbell (Nzl) 78 72, Trevor Immelman (Rsa) 77 73, Paul McGinley 77 73, Stewart Cink (USA) 75 75, Stephen Leaney (Aus) 74 76, Darren Clarke 75 75, Mike Weir (Can) 74 76, Mark O'Meara (USA) 73 77, Rory Sabbatini (Rsa) 79 71, Ian Poulter 78 72, Nick Faldo 76 74, Tom Lehman (USA) 77 73, Brian Davis 77 73, Peter Fowler (Aus) 77 73

The Following Players Missed The Halfway Cut:

151 Mark Calcavecchia (USA) 78 73, Eduardo Romero (Arg) 75 76, Lee Westwood 76 75, Lee Janzen (USA) 76 75, Justin Leonard (USA) 74 77, Jose Maria Olazabal (Spa) 74 77, Anders Hansen (Den) 76 75, Steen Tinning (Den) 78 73

152 Bradley Dredge 80 72, Jay Haas (USA) 80 72, Ignacio Garrido (Spa) 80 72, Jim Furyk (USA) 74 78, Scott Verplank (USA) 78 74, Nick O'Hern (Aus) 82 70, Bernhard Langer (Ger) 76 76, Soren Kjeldsen (Den) 74 78, Andrew Raitt 74 78, Sandy Lyle 73 79, Hal Sutton (USA) 76 76, Corey Pavin (USA) 74 78, Niclas Fasth (Swe) 76 76

153 Rolf Muntz (Ned) 82 71, Jeff Sluman (USA) 78 75, (x) Ricky Barnes (USA) 79 74, David Toms (USA) 80 73, Jarrod Moseley (Aus) 74 79, Steven Bowditch (Aus) 77 76, Joe Durant (USA) 77 76, Chris Riley (USA) 78 75, Todd Hamilton (USA) 76 77, Cameron Percy (Aus) 76 77

154 Hirofumi Miyase (Jpn) 81 73, Chris DiMarco (USA) 79 75, Soren Hansen (Den) 80 74, Peter O'Malley (Aus) 78 76, Cliff Kresge (USA) 81 73, Marten Olander (Swe) 79 75

155 Dudley Hart (USA) 76 79, Paul Lawrie 81 74, Nobuhito Sato (Jpn) 72 83, Craig Perks (Nzl) 78 77, Charl Schwartzel (Rsa) 78 77, David Howell 77 78, Kenneth Ferrie 74 81, Christopher Smith 77 78, Fred Funk (USA) 75 80, Luke Donald 76 79

156 Simon Wakefield 82 74, Adam Scott (Aus) 82 74, Shigeki Maruyama (Jpn) 83 73, Paul Casey 85 71, Robert-Jan Derksen (Ned) 78 78, Jonathan Kaye (USA) 75 81, Steve Flesch (USA) 73 83, (x) Gary Wolstenholme 74 82, Greg Owen 79 77

157 Gary Emerson 77 80, Hideto Tanihara (Jpn) 79 78, Mark Smith 80 77, Jyoti Randhawa (Ind) 80 77, Paul Wesselingh 79 78, Euan Little 80 77

158 Ben Crane (USA) 78 80, Iain Pyman 81 77

159 Justin Rose 79 80

160 (x) Scott Godfrey 82 78, David Smail (Nzl) 77 83

161 Philip Golding 83 78, David Duval (USA) 83 78, Malcolm Mackenzie 82 79

162 Adam Le Vesconte (Aus) 82 80, Robert Coles 85 77

163 Anthony Sproston 83 80

164 Andrew George 79 85

165 Noboru Sugai (Jpn) 83 82

169 Toru Taniguchi (Jpn) 82 87

173 Charles Challen 86 87