Wolverhampton's Aaron Rai in contention at PGA despite a late double-blow

An impressive round of 70 saw him move up the leaderboard on six under par for the tournament – but the 29-year-old would have left the course thinking he should have been much higher.

Rai is seven shots behind leader Matt Baldwin but will feel he should have much closer going into the weekend after spoiling a previously flawless card with bogeys on the final two holes yesterday.

The former Wolverhampton Grammar School pupil, now based in Florida, had made his way up to third after his fourth birdie of the day on the a6th hole,

But giving two shots back to the field late on saw him finish the day in tied 11th.

Earlier, England’s Matt Baldwin set a daunting clubhouse target on a weather-affected day two.

Baldwin, who held a one-shot lead overnight, added a second round of 66 to his opening 65 for a halfway total of 13 under par, equalling the tournament record set by Paul McGinley in 2008. That gave Baldwin a two shot-shot lead over Denmark’s Niklas Norgaard with France’s Antoine Rozner, who birdied six of his last seven holes – and the last five in succession – one shot further back.

Rory McIlroy finished the day fourth on nine under par.

Play was suspended for 77 minutes due to the threat of lightning shortly before noon, with Baldwin having just holed from 25 feet for par on the 16th before the siren sounded.

The 38-year-old won his first DP World Tour title in South Africa last year, but admitted he had considered quitting the game on several occasions as he battled to keep his card.

“I had three or four months working at Amazon driving a van just to see me through the winter before the Challenge Tour started in 2022,” said Baldwin, who earned his card in 2017 on his sixth visit to the qualifying school.

“I learned a lot from that. I learned that there are other things that I could do in life but I also learned that I really wanted to play golf.”

Asked to recall a funny moment from his driving stint, Baldwin added: “There’s plenty to be fair.

“I remember pulling up to a block of flats, jumped out the van, got in the back and all of a sudden I feel like I’m moving and I’m like ‘oh no, I forgot to put the handbrake on’.

“So I’ve ran out the back, ran around the side, yanked the handbrake up, still wouldn’t stop, yanked it more, it eventually stopped about this far short (inches) of a blue Fiesta. There was a woman I was delivering a parcel to who watched the whole thing and she said ‘I couldn’t get my phone out quick enough to film it’.”

Growing up in Southport, Baldwin played a lot of junior golf with Tommy Fleetwood, whose second round of 68 left him six shots behind his former Lancashire foursomes partner.

“I don’t think we ever lost,” Baldwin added. “We played a lot of golf growing up, graduated the same year from Challenge Tour and obviously played a little bit out here.

“Our paths have gone slightly different but hopefully I can catch him up.”

Staffordshire’s Richard Mansell missed the cut after his one-under-par second round proved too little to make up for a disappointing first day.