Rose tightens his grip on lead

Rose, who earned his maiden PGA Tour victory at the Memorial earlier this month, set about doubling his tally at TPC River Highlands near Hartford with a bogey-free round just one stroke off the course record at the 6,844-yard, par-70 layout.

Following on from an opening 64 that had put him in a four-way share of the lead, Rose's lowest round of the year allowed him to reach halfway in the tournament at 14-under-par, five strokes clear of Vijay Singh and Bill Lunde with half of the field getting their second round under way yesterday.

For the second day in a row Rose holed five consecutive birdies on his back nine and he missed just one fairway and two greens in regulation and needed just 26 putts.

Rose's co-leaders Padraig Harrington, Australian Mathew Goggin and South Korea's Charlie Wi were all part of the later wave, leaving Singh and the USA's Lunde to lead the chase among the earlier starters.

Rose needs a strong finish this week to cement a place at next month's Open Championship. His victory at the Memorial last month sent him to the top of a six-event money list on the PGA Tour, the top two places after next week's AT&T National earning an exemption for the Open.

After his first round in which he shared the opening day lead with Rose, Harrington spoke in glowing terms of the health of European golf in a Ryder Cup year. Northern Ireland's Graeme McDowell became the third European in a row after English duo Rose and Lee Westwood to complete successive victories in America as he won the US Open at Pebble Beach last week.

"It obviously does bode well," said Harrington. "The Ryder Cup tends to be hard to win as a favourite team at times, so I'm sure there will be no doubt the US will maybe try and make out that the Europeans are favoured and try and play that card.

"The Europeans are strong. I just dropped out of the automatic qualification. It's not an easy team to qualify for, which is always a good sign that you've got a strong team."