By Mark Garrod, PA Sport Golf Correspondent, Rochester

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If somebody had said at the start of the season that there would be three new major champions Phil Mickelson would have been favourite to be among them.

The trio are Mike Weir, Jim Furyk and Ben Curtis instead, but in the final major of the year Mickelson has given himself another chance to join the club.

Not since 1969 have four first-timers won golf's four biggest trophies, but going into the second round of the United States PGA championship at Oak Hill in Rochester, New York, the left-hander is tied for the lead with Australian Rod Pampling.

The last time Pampling led a major was the Open at Carnoustie in 1999 - and a round later he had gone from that lofty position to out of the tournament. What a difference a day made then and he will be praying there is no repeat.

Mickelson has had eight top-three finishes to his name and 17 top 10s, but this is his 46th major and he has yet to get across the line first.

Two years ago at the US PGA the 33-year-old achieved the lowest total in major history - and it still was not enough. Moments later David Toms lowered it by one to deny him.

It was Tiger Woods who stopped him at the US Open last year - Woods' last victory incidentally - but the world number one already has eight strokes to make up after his "frustrating" opening 74.

The four-under-par 66s of Mickelson and Pampling left them one ahead of Billy Andrade and two in front of Masters champion Weir - another leftie, of course - and twice US Open champion Lee Janzen.

Leading Europeans are Padraig Harrington, Ian Poulter and Sergio Garcia on two over - six back.

Down from second to 10th in the world this year, Mickelson had his first top-10 finish for four months last week and felt a lot better about his game coming back to the course on which he won all his three games on his Ryder Cup debut in 1995.

"I knew I was playing better than I had all year," he said. "It's a good start, but there's a lot of golf left."

He is doing all he can to make the remaining 54 holes successful, explaining his declining of a full-scale press conference by saying: "I just played a five-hour round. I'm mentally drained, physically trained, hungry and I think it is more important that I maintain my physical strength, mental strength and have a break than it is to accommodate everyone here."

Woods knows what he needs to do to reignite his hopes of becoming the first player since Walter Hagen in the 1920s to win at least one major a season for five years.

"I just didn't drive very well and put myself under a lot of pressure because of it," he said of his first round. "It didn't matter what club I hit off the tee I couldn't keep in play.

"But tomorrow is a new day. Just get out there and drive the ball better and then give myself some chances because you know by the end of the week it is going to be tough just to try and stay under par or even par."

Making the halfway cut is a tall order for some of the big names. Colin Montgomerie and defending champion Rich Beem slumped to 82s, Darren Clarke and Paul Casey were only three better and Open runner-up Thomas Bjorn is eight over after a 78.

Clarke had a mountain to climb from the moment he started double bogey, triple bogey, but while he could not prevent some further bleeding Harrington came back from four successive bogeys on the front nine.

"They came from nowhere - I hit all the fairways," said the Dubliner. "Maybe it was a little bit of lack of sharpness and a bit of a mental slip-up.

"I was struggling at that stage and it would have been easy to change tactics, but I kept doing the same things and it worked out well." Off he then went to see if there was any news from home, where his wife Caroline is due to give birth to their first child next Monday.

Welshman Bradley Dredge's first major round in America ended in a 75. He had six bogeys in a row on the outward half as he got used to playing with his own clubs again - they were lost en route and arrived only on Wednesday.

Lee Westwood, Luke Donald, Alastair Forsyth, Brian Davis and Paul McGinley kept their interest very much alive with 73s and Gary Evans had a 74 in his first-ever tournament in the States, but Justin Rose, Phillip Price and Greg Owen were all disappointed with 77s.