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Padraig Harrington continued to do everything in his power to ensure his prediction of a home winner came true as the Irish Open resumed at a windswept Royal County Down on Friday.
Former champion Harrington predicted on Wednesday that an Irish player would lift the trophy on Sunday, with world number one Rory McIlroy seemingly the most likely contender.
But while McIlroy faced an uphill battle to avoid a third straight cut in the event after crashing to an opening 80, Harrington claimed a share of the overnight lead with Germany's Max Kieffer with an opening 67.
And after starting his second round on the back nine with a run of six pars, Harrington picked up his first birdie of the day on the 16th to move into the outright lead on five under par.
However depsiet reaching the tun in 34 a double bogey on his 12th started atough runm for hiome that eneded in 4 over poar - signing for a second round 73.
There was simialr news for 2009 Three irish Open winner Shane Lowry who broke his putter as a run of three bogeys in four holes dropped him to four over par.
That was one shot outside the current projected cut, although that seemed certain to rise as more players took to the course, with McIlroy scheduled to start his second round at 1pm.
Harrington holed from 15 feet for birdie on the 17th to extend his lead and missed from just six feet for an eagle on the par-five first, but the tap-in birdie took him further ahead of the chasing pack.
At seven under par the 43-year-old, whose victory in the Honda Classic in March was his first on a major tour since the 2008 US PGA, was three ahead of Kieffer, who had started with two pars, with 2002 winner Soren Hansen, Austria's Bernd Wiesberger and France's Alexander Levy all two under.
Lowry bogeyed the 17th but successfully two-putted the 18th with a wedge to reach the turn in 40, his putter understood to have been damaged after he missed a short putt on the 12th.
Lowry shrugged off his equipment problems to birdie the first and second and improve to three over par, but Harrington's serene progress had come to a grinding halt in the match ahead.
A bogey on the second was followed by a double bogey on the third and another dropped shot on the fourth, leaving the two-time Open champion three under par and one shot behind new leader Wiesberger.
Wiesberger had finished the back nine with birdies on the 16th and 17th and an eagle on the 18th, and then saw playing partner Andy Sullivan hole out with a two iron from 259 yards on the par-five first for an albatross.
