Colin Montgomerie has played hundreds, if not thousands, of rounds at Royal Troon but none like the next two.

In the most traumatic year of his life and without a top 10 finish in any Major since 1999, Montgomerie is chasing his ultimate ambition - an Open championship title on his home course.

While Surrey's Paul Casey, joint first-round leader with France's Thomas Levet, crashed to a 77 and returned to the role of youngster with a lot of promise for the future, the 41-year-old Scot took a giant step towards proving his best is not in the past, but just around the corner.

Inspired by the support of his home fans, all fully aware of the break-up of his marriage, and forgetting the fact that his world ranking - 71st - is at a 13-year low, Montgomerie added a second-successive two-under-par 69.

But it ended on a slightly worrying note when he missed a three-footer for a three-putt bogey which dropped him into a tie for fifth rather than a share of third with England's Barry Lane and South Korean KJ Choi. And he then declined the invitation to give a full-scale press conference.

Leading at seven under is Skip Kendall, a 39-year-old American without a single US Tour win to his name. Not that that is a barrier to winning - Ben Curtis did it last year.

Kendall's main claim to fame is that, like President Bush, he has had a mishap with a bagel. At last year's Memorial Tournament in Ohio he was slicing one and cut off part of his left index finger.

In two previous Open appearances he had never shot lower than 73, but this week he too has found inspiration and with a 66 he moved one ahead of Levet.

But it was Montgomerie who attracted the biggest gallery and it is Montgomerie, of course, whose position in the event will probably cause roads to the Ayrshire course to be jammed over the weekend.

This is not the time to get over-excited, however. Two years ago at Muirfield the seven-time European number one fired a second-round 64 and stood two off the lead. He followed it with an 84.

But maybe there is something written in the stars about the 2004 championship. Montgomerie did not even have a place in it until he came through a play-off in the qualifying tournament at Sunningdale two weeks ago.

He described it as "the first decent thing that has happened to me in a while - a very important day in my life".

Three behind at the start of play, he instantly put two birdies on his card (while playing partner Thomas Bjorn was starting double bogey, triple bogey) and after three-putting the next came back with another by getting up and down from a greenside bunker at the long fourth.

There was another dropped shot at the difficult ninth, but helped by the fact that the wind was nowhere near as strong for the later starters he birdied the 15th and then almost holed his chip for eagle from over the back of the green at the 542-yard 16th.

Levet, not in the championship himself until he won the Barclays Scottish Open on Sunday, continued to ride the crest of a wave when he set off again.

But there were some anxious moments for the 35-year-old right at the start of his round after an incident which could lead to him being called the "ice cream champion" just like Seve Ballesteros was called the "car park champion" 25 years ago.

Japanese tour official Andy Yamanaki, the official walking with Levet's group, found himself a busy man all of a sudden.

Not only did Levet pull his opening tee shot into the crowd and close to an ice cream stand, Australian Matthew Goggin was even wilder, hooking his drive round the edge of one of the grandstands on the adjoining 18th hole.

First Yamanaki supervised Levet's free drop, but while he then turned his attention to Goggin marshals took down the spectator railing in front of Levet's ball.

The barrier is deemed an immovable obstruction and should not have moved, but when Royal and Ancient rules secretary David Rickman was called it was agreed that in the general confusion Levet had not been responsible for or played any part in what happened.

If he had been, it would have been a two-stroke penalty.

Levet got out of the hole with a par, birdied two of the next three and then parred his way round to the 431-yard 12th, where he missed the green and failed first time to negotiate the slope in front of him.

As he was doing that Kendall, one of the US Tour players who did turn up for the qualifying event in Washington a fortnight ago, was eagling the 16th and setting the target.

Bjorn, who lost last year from three ahead with four to play, had another triple bogey on the last for a 79 and missed the cut.

Curtis, the man to capitalise on the Dane's horror finish 12 months ago, was another halfway casualty, as were Europe's top two players Padraig Harrington and Sergio Garcia.

Both needed to birdie the last to survive, but Harrington bogeyed it and Garcia double-bogeyed it.

The five favourites this week are still around, though.

World number two Ernie Els, who needed five holes of a play-off to beat Levet and win the title two years ago, stands four under along with world number three Vijay Singh. Masters champion Phil Mickelson and US Open champion Retief Goosen are only one further back and world number one Tiger Woods is one under.

As for Casey, he was philosophical after a round which included double bogeys at the third and 13th and four bogeys.

And he did have the pleasure of witnessing a sparkling 66, the joint low round of the day with Kendall's, from Mickelson.

Collated second-round totals (GB & Ire unless stated)

Collated Scores and totals in the second round of the 133rd Open Golf Championship, Royal Troon GC, Troon, Scotland (Gbr & Irl unless stated, (x) denotes amateur, Par 71)

135 Skip Kendall (USA) 69 66

136 Thomas Levet (Fra) 66 70

137 Barry Lane 69 68, K.J. Choi (Kor) 68 69

138 Michael Campbell (Nzl) 67 71, Vijay Singh (Fij) 68 70, Todd Hamilton (USA) 71 67, Ernie Els (Rsa) 69 69, Colin Montgomerie 69 69

139 Mike Weir (Can) 71 68, Kenny Perry (USA) 69 70, Retief Goosen (Rsa) 69 70, Phil Mickelson (USA) 73 66, Scott Verplank (USA) 69 70

140 Rodney Pampling (Aus) 72 68, Kim Felton (Aus) 73 67

141 Gary Emerson 70 71, Darren Clarke 69 72, Adam Scott (Aus) 73 68, Tiger Woods (USA) 70 71, Gary Evans 68 73, Davis Love III (USA) 72 69, Stuart Appleby (Aus) 71 70

142 David Toms (USA) 71 71, Marten Olander (Swe) 68 74, Steve Lowery (USA) 69 73, Alastair Forsyth 68 74, Brad Faxon (USA) 74 68, Rich Beem (USA) 69 73, Shaun Micheel (USA) 70 72, Nick Price (Zim) 71 71, Chris DiMarco (USA) 71 71, Justin Leonard (USA) 70 72, Kenneth Ferrie 68 74, Joakim Haeggman (Swe) 69 73, Paul Bradshaw 75 67

143 Ian Poulter 71 72, Rory Sabbatini (Rsa) 71 72, (x) Stuart Wilson 68 75, Lee Westwood 72 71, Mark Foster 71 72, Tjaart Van Der Walt (Rsa) 70 73, Hunter Mahan (USA) 74 69, Sandy Lyle 70 73, Andrew Oldcorn 73 70, Shigeki Maruyama (Jpn) 71 72, Paul Casey 66 77, Takashi Kamiyama (Jpn) 70 73, Trevor Immelman (Rsa) 69 74, Stewart Cink (USA) 72 71, Martin Erlandsson (Swe) 73 70, Bo Van Pelt (USA) 72 71

144 Tetsuji Hiratsuka (Jpn) 70 74, Keiichiro Fukabori (Jpn) 73 71, Raphael Jacquelin (Fra) 72 72, Mathias Gronberg (Swe) 70 74, Bob Tway (USA) 76 68, Christian Cevaer (Fra) 70 74

145 Jerry Kelly (USA) 75 70, Mark O'Meara (USA) 71 74, Steve Flesh (USA) 75 70, Miguel Angel Jimenez (Spa) 74 71, Mark Calcavecchia (USA) 72 73, Paul McGinley 69 76, Carl Pettersson (Swe) 68 77, James Kingston (Rsa) 73 72, Charles Howell III (USA) 75 70, Paul Broadhurst 71 74, Ignacio Garrido (Spa) 71 74, Bob Estes (USA) 73 72, Jyoti Randhawa (Ind) 73 72, Paul Wesselingh 73 72, Sean Whiffin 73 72

The following players failed to make the cut:

146 S.K. Ho (Kor) 72 74, Chad Campbell (USA) 72 74, Jay Haas (USA) 70 76, Tim Clark (Rsa) 73 73, Scott Barr (Aus) 70 76, Jim Furyk (USA) 73 73, Fredrik Jacobson (Swe) 75 71, Luke Donald 75 71, Mathew Goggin (Aus) 68 78, Euan Little 74 72, Klas Eriksson (Swe) 73 73

147 Peter Lonard (Aus) 76 71, Stephen Leaney (Aus) 73 74, Robert Allenby (Aus) 70 77, Jonathan Cheetham 72 75, Jean Francois Remesy (Fra) 74 73, Sven Struver (Ger) 74 73, (x) Lloyd Campbell 73 74, Grant Muller (Rsa) 73 74, Peter O'Malley (Aus) 77 70, Craig Parry (Aus) 76 71, Brendan Jones (Aus) 71 76, Chris Riley (USA) 72 75, Paul Sheehan (Aus) 75 72, Padraig Harrington 76 71, (x) Steven Tiley 71 76, Glen Day (USA) 74 73, Barry Hume 72 75

148 John Huston (USA) 75 73, John Daly (USA) 70 78, Phillip Price 75 73, Arjun Atwal (Ind) 74 74, Tim Herron (USA) 72 76, Daniel Sugrue 74 74, Ben Willman 72 76, Maarten Lafeber (Ned) 74 74, (x) Nick Flanagan (Aus) 72 76, Sergio Garcia (Spa) 75 73

149 Aaron Baddeley (Aus) 74 75, Miles Tunnicliff 74 75, Brian Davis 72 77, Greg Norman (Aus) 73 76, Spike McRoy (USA) 71 78, Ben Curtis (USA) 75 74, Cameron Beckman (USA) 75 74, Zach Johnson (USA) 73 76, Stephen Ames (Can) 74 75

150 Matthew Hazleden 79 71, Anders Hansen (Den) 76 74, Simon Wakefield 73 77, Richard Green (Aus) 74 76, Jonathan Kaye (USA) 74 76, Hidemasa Hoshino (Jpn) 76 74

151 Simon Dyson 75 76, Peter Hedblom (Swe) 78 73, Tom Lehman (USA) 73 78, Craig Perks (Nzl) 74 77, Hennie Otto (Rsa) 74 77, Darren Fichardt (Rsa) 71 80

152 Eduardo Romero (Arg) 77 75, (x) Brian McElhinney 76 76, Scott Drummond 73 79, Graeme McDowell 79 73

153 Nick Faldo 76 77, David Griffiths 75 78, Thomas Bjorn (Den) 74 79, Jimmy Green (USA) 78 75

154 David Howell 78 76, Nicolas Colsaerts (Bel) 77 77, Franck Lickliter II (USA) 77 77, Dinesh Chand (Fij) 80 74

155 Paul Lawrie 78 77

156 Louis Oosthuizen (Rsa) 74 82, Andrew Willey 80 76

157 Ian Spencer 79 78, Adam Le Vesconte (Aus) 77 80

158 Andrew Buckle 76 82

159 Yoshinobu Tsukada (Jpn) 79 80

160 Tom Weiskopf (USA) 80 80

161 Brett Taylor 86 75

163 Neil Evans 85 78

164 Lewis Atkinson 79 85, Anthony Millar 78 86