Kuchar Finishes PGA Championship Second Round With 2-Shot Lead August 13, 2010, 5:30 PM EDT

By Mason Levinson and Michael Buteau

Aug. 13 (Bloomberg) — Matt Kuchar holds a two-shot lead at the PGA Championship after completing his second round.

Kuchar, 32, had four birdies and a bogey during second- round play at Whistling Straits in Kohler, Wisconsin, to get to 8-under par at the golf season’s final major tournament. He finished his round as rain began to fall.

With a 5-under 67 first round that finished earlier today, he’s two strokes ahead of 19-year-old South Korean Seung Yul Noh, who has played 16 holes.

Jason Dufner and Bryce Molder each finished their rounds at 5-under, and are joined by Dustin Johnson, Nick Watney and Simon Kahn, who are still on the course.

The first round was completed at 2:02 p.m. New York time, nearly two hours after second-round play began, after fog delayed the start of play each of the last two days.

Tournament favorite Phil Mickelson shot a 1-over-par 73 during his first round and is even-par overall through 13 second-round holes.

Tiger Woods, the No. 1 player in the Official World Golf Rankings, shot 1-under during the first round yesterday and is scheduled to begin his second round at 6:45 p.m.

Play resumed today following a 2-hour, 40-minute delay for fog. That came after more than three hours of interruptions yesterday before the fog cleared along Lake Michigan, keeping 78 golfers from completing their opening rounds.

Woods snapped a career-worst streak of seven straight rounds without breaking par yesterday to sit four shots off the lead.

Winless Woods

Woods, winless in eight starts this season, had birdies on three of his first four holes. After playing the next 13 holes in 3-over to slip back to even par, he finished with a 9-foot birdie putt for a 1-under 71.

Woods is seeking to rebound from his worst performance as a professional, having finished next-to-last at the U.S. PGA Tour’s Bridgestone Invitational last week at 18-over par.

Yesterday marked the first time Woods finished a round under par since a 5-under 67 over the opening 18 holes of last month’s British Open. He finished golf’s oldest major championship tied for 23rd after subsequent rounds of 73, 73 and 72. Woods’s last victory in a major championship came at the 2008 U.S. Open.

–Editor: Larry Siddons

To contact the reporters on this story: Michael Buteau in Kohler, Wisconsin at mbuteau@bloomberg.net; Mason Levinson in New York at mlevinson@bloomberg.net.

To contact the editor responsible for this story: Michael Sillup at msillup@bloomberg.net