Matthew Fitzpatrick moved a step closer to successfully defending his DP World Tour Championship, Dubai title as a second consecutive 67 moved him to ten under at Jumeirah Golf Estates.
Here, we take a look at what some of the chasing pack had to say after their second rounds.
Tyrrell Hatton (63, -9)
"If you said at the start of the day I would shoot nine under, I would be over the moon. Pretty bitter pill to swallow on 18, that hole seems to hate me. Hopefully one day I'll actually play it well. Overall I'm really happy with today. Obviously my head is a bit all over the place after 18. It was nice to hole putts again, that was a big thing today. There was a little substitution with the putter from yesterday so that seemed to work well. If I can keep putting like that for the rest of the tournament then, hopefully, on Sunday I'll give myself a good chance."
Søren Kjeldsen (69, -7)
"I just hit a lot of decent shots I thought and made a lot of nice putts. It was all in all a very nice day. I just feel really happy and comfortable on the course. I would like to get into the Top 50 in the world. Augusta is my favourite tournament in the world, at the same time with the Open. Obviously for me it's a big target to try and get into that Top 50 before April time."
Jon Rahm (68, -7)
"The front nine I felt good, my putting wasn't just there. A couple of mistakes, again, following with yesterday, the mistakes were really costly my first 27 holes. The back nine I just seemed to make every single putt I didn't make on the front nine. I made a couple of really good par-putts on 11 and 13. Played every par five basically really great. I just took advantage of the opportunities. Turning what at the beginning of the year was a non-membership to an affiliate to becoming a Rolex Series champion to getting here as fourth in the Race to Dubai after finishing great in the US, it's a huge honour, to be honest. Just to have the chance to maybe finish in the top three, my first year, when at first I really had no hopes of being here at this point, I'm just really glad to be here. I'm really thankful."
Patrick Reed (72, -7)
"Today I didn't quite hit it as well as yesterday. Seems like yesterday when I hit it really solid, it was really close to the hole. Today it felt like when I hit it really solid, it was that 15-to-18-foot range. Pins were a little tougher, it was harder to get the ball as close as I wanted. The main thing is 14 greens yesterday, ten greens today and then the big factor is the fairways. I didn't hit as many fairways today, unlike yesterday. There were a couple of mental mistakes that I needed to clean up but all in all it was pretty close, it wasn't too far off. I just need that putter to continue working, I missed too many putts today."
