Martin Laird makes move to close on Miami leader

Scotland's Martin Laird, whose climb into the world's top 50 has been overshadowed by the deeds of all the Europeans at the top of the rankings, was certainly making his presence felt in Miami yesterday.

Midway through his second round at the WGC-Cadillac Championship, US-based Laird was seven-under-par and sharing second spot with world No 2 Martin Kaymer. They were two behind Hunter Mahan as the event made up for time lost to Thursday's thunderstorm.

With scoring much tougher in the windy conditions, Laird completed an outward 34 by reaching the green in two at the long eighth and then making a 45-footer for another birdie on the 169-yard ninth. That moved the 28-year-old up from the fourth position he was in after the morning completion of the first round.

Mahan's opening eight-under 64 had given him a one-stroke advantage over Japan's 19-year-old Ryo Ishikawa, but not surprisingly he fell down the field after seeing coverage of the devastating earthquake and tsunami in his home country. "My parents live some 250 miles away from the Tokyo area," he said. "The magnitude of 5.0 felt where my family lives is still a very big earthquake, so I just hope that everybody else around will be safe as well. I have a habit of checking the news when I wake up in the morning. Everywhere I saw was all about this and it is not possible to block something of this magnitude out completely.

"But I understand that in the position that I am, together with the other star athletes from Japan and other sporting areas, we can provide encouragement and hope for the people of Japan by doing our job."