Victorian Marcus Fraser will head into the third round of the Australian PGA Championship with a two-stroke lead thanks to his Friday 65 at Coolum, but there are a host of big names, including Bubba Watson, Robert Allenby and Adam Scott, lurking in the chasing pack.
With seven birdies in a flawless round, Fraser capitalised on favourable conditions to move to 11 under and top billing ahead of American Presidents Cup star Watson, who led by two shots himself when he reached the turn before stumbling on the back nine, leaving him to be content with a four-under 68.
Three strokes adrift of Fraser is another player who impressed last week at Royal Melbourne, South Korean KT Kim (67), while his compatriot and 2009 US PGA champion YE Yang (68), who led before being overtaken in the afternoon, shares fourth on seven under with triple PGA winner Allenby (68), Scott (67) and John Senden.
Fraser's 65 didn't earn him the low round of the day though, with Senden taking those honours by recovering from his opening-round 73 with a superb 64 that for a long time looked like being several shots lower.
Senden looked on track to surpass the course record of nine under set by Min-kyu Han, who shot 62 two years ago when Coolum was a par-71 layout, but after briefly entertaining thoughts of what could have been possible, he ran out of steam.
After his early heroics on day one, Jason Day had a steadier round as he grabbed three birdies in a 69 to move to six under, leaving him alongside Stuart Appleby (68), Leigh McKechnie (70), Kieran Pratt (70), Anthony Summers (68), Kurt Barnes (69), Josh Geary (70), Aaron Townsend (71) and Shih-chang Chan (69).
Appleby's round could have been just about anything too after he birdied his first five holes of the day but a double bogey at 16 and bogey at 18 threatened to derail his momentum before he steadied coming home on the front nine with two further birdies.
Joint overnight leader Steven Bowditch, who led by three strokes midway through the morning, gave back four shots on the front nine as he slumped to a 73 and five under, where he is level with Aaron Baddeley (72), Doug Holloway (69), Marc Leishman (69) and Joon-woo Choi (73).
Like Bowditch before him, Choi improved his overnight score from six to nine under with a hat-trick of birdies through his first seven holes but he also dropped four shots overall from there as he battled, none more so than at the last where he had a triple-bogey seven.
Peter Fowler and Australian Open champion Greg Chalmers both shot 69 to be among those tied for 22nd at four under, and Geoff Ogilvy, Greg Norman and Nick O'Hern also signed for that score to be equal 28th at minus three with Alistair Presnell (68) and Aron Price (72).
British Open champion Darren Clarke (73) will start his third round nine off the pace and defending champ Peter Senior (73) from 10 back while Andre Stolz (77) and Mathew Goggin (73) will just make the cut at even par but Craig Parry (83) will have the weekend off.
Two back overnight, Fraser grabbed his initial birdie at the 5th, sparking a run of three in four holes, and after adding another at 11 repeated the effort from the 13th to overtake a faltering Watson, whose final five holes read bogey, bogey, birdie, bogey, birdie.
Senden picked up seven shots in as many holes with five birdies and a hole in one at the par-three 2nd, remarkably the same hole playing partner Chalmers also aced on Thursday.
Like Scott 24 hours earlier, Baddeley had an up and down round.
After slumping to even par with two double bogeys and a bogey in his first seven holes as Appleby was shooting the lights out, Baddeley then birdied six of his next eight holes to close within one of the lead only to give one of the shots back at the 8th.
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