Kim Provides the Early Challenge to García's Lead

Contrary to the wishes of Ernie Els, who took a triple-bogey six at the 17th on Thursday and prompted declared it should be "blown up", one of the most famous par-threes in the game was still in play yesterday as the second round of the Players Championship began in Florida. This was just as well because as the so-called fifth major headed into the weekend it was patently clearly it can ill-afford to lose its other star attraction.

With Tiger Woods, the alpha, beta and gamma of the US game, at home recuperating from knee surgery, it has been left to the 17th to lift a curiously flat atmosphere, with most of the spectators gravitating to the island green in the hope of watching some serious mayhem. The ghouls got their reward on Thursday as 19 players hit tee shots into water, with each and every splash greeted with whoops and hollers.

More schadenfreude was forecast as Friday's round progressed and the breeze stiffened. The purists object to such behavior, of course, but then purists have always labored under the apprehension that the most important obligation is to keep them happy, as opposed to keeping the public entertained.

In any case there was much to please those with more refined tastes, not least the play of Sergio García, whose opening-day 66, six-under, left open the enticing prospect that the Spaniard had at long last emerged from the sulk that descended after last year's Open, which saw lose a three-shot lead on the final day. Phil Mickelson was another who began the day carrying a heavy burden of expectations, not least because he is seeking to defend a title he won last year. Both were among the afternoon starters.

Those seeking early thrills were left to dine on thin gruel. Els managed to negotiate the 17th in a regulation three and then followed up with two birdies to finish one-under par. Luke Donald covered 16 holes in even par but was three-over, while Paul Casey at eight-over, and Lee Westwood, five-over, were also struggling to make the cut.

Thank heavens, then, for Anthony Kim, the latest tyro to be anointed as the man to knock Woods off his pedestal. The young American won last weekend's Wachovia Championship on the PGA tour and gave himself more than a fighting chance of a second successive victory yesterday.

Two-under overnight, Kim birdied two of his first three to move into second place behind García. So far, so impressive. But there is an impetuousness about the American - he is 22, after all - that occasionally led him into trouble. So it proved on the 5th, which saw him take a driver when a three-wood might have served him better. He hit a good shot but his ball bounded on into a spot of rough, from where he could only slash into another patch of rough 40 yards short of the green. His third went through the green and left him facing a bogey five, or at least it would have done had he not then chipped in for par.

He almost chipped in again at the next, this time for birdie, after over-hitting his approach through the green. His exuberance eventually got him at the 7th when the wrong choice of club - a driver - saw his well-struck drive roll into a pond and he picked up a bogey but he finished on four-under, well in contention.

Say what you like about Kim's attitude, and some will, especially after watching him take a huge divot out of the 6th fairway and watch him blithely walk away without replacing it, but like the 17th, there is never a dull moment when he is around.