Scottish golfer Matthew Wilson made the big move in the second round of the North of Ireland Amateur Open Championship as he joined Paul Coughlan at the top of the standings.
Indeed, the Forres golfer was the clubhouse leader for much of the day until his Castleknock opponent birdied 12 and 15 to rise up the standings once again.
The heatwave continued at Royal Portrush on Thursday but outside of a pair of 67s from Max Hopkins (Bishops Stortford) and Timmy Jordan (Dungannon) the low scorers were still difficult to come by.
Consistency was crucial for Wilson and despite a tricky start where he double-bogeyed the first, he still managed six birdies to make it a second successive 69, for a -6 total.
“Really really happy. The weather is perfect and there’s a couple of tees up but still a hard golf course,” said Wilson.
“It’s good, just solid golf. Bad start today, double bogey at the first but then managed to go birdie, birdie straight after and that settled me down. -3 for the back nine both days which has helped.
“Keeping it straight off the tee. Not hit driver that much but have hit the fairway a lot and it’s firm so it’s playing short but you have to be in the fairway to get any kind of control. I’ve just hit it very straight for the most part.
“Similar weather tomorrow as well, no wind, so it’s absolutely perfect, we’ll see what happens but yeah I’m looking forward to it.”
Hopkins set a blistering early pace when he added a 67 to his opening 75 and that put him into T3 alongside Jack Hearn (Tramore). Darragh Flynn (Carton House) and Aaron Marshall (Lisburn) were the only other players to finish under par on -1.
In all 30 players made it through to Friday’s 36 holes and Coughlan is primed to challenge, when he tees off alongside Wilson and Hopkins in the final group.
“The weather is looking like it’s going to be the same again tomorrow, just a bit of paradise for 36 holes which will be nice,” said Coughlan.
“It would be unreal to win it, especially around a place like Portrush but there is 36 holes of golf to go so a long way before I start thinking about it just yet.
“Tee to green it was similar to yesterday. Hit it pretty good, kept myself out of trouble for the most part. Started off with 11 straight two putts so it was just a case of trying to stay patient and hopefully a few putts would drop coming in and lucky enough they did.
“Once I got the birdie on the 12th I was kind of like, right I’ll get the ball rolling from here. I played nicely then coming in.”
View the scoring here