Alex Baker posted 42 points, the best card of the day. It clawed back exactly one point on the Trophy. Progress, of a kind. David Mullin recorded a personal best at the course and lost ground in the Green Jacket regardless. John Patterson, meanwhile, pulled further clear in the Wooden Spoon. He is the only man in the field currently winning anything comfortably.

Round 2 at PGA Catalunya's Tour Course delivered Gregg Williams his low point and his recovery within the space of four holes. At the par-5 15th, one of the course's harder holes, he ran up a quintuple bogey 10. That followed a bogey at the 14th. A double bogey at the 16th continued the slide.

Then he steadied. A birdie at the 17th broke the run of bogeys or worse. A par at the 18th closed the back nine without a shot dropped over the last two holes. He had also put together a clean two-hole stretch through the 12th and 13th earlier on.

Despite the 10, Williams signed for 92. That matches the best gross score he has posted at the Tour Course, level with the mark from his only previous visit there. It is also his third-best gross round in 37 TEG rounds. A man can lose five shots to par on one hole and still have one of the better days of his career. That tells you something about the other 36.

John Patterson set a new course worst at PGA Catalunya - Tour. His 103 gross in round two eclipsed the previous mark of 101, a figure assembled patiently across five prior visits. Five visits of groundwork, demolished in one round.

The damage was done early and late. Holes 3 to 5 cost him eight shots without a single par: a double bogey, a triple bogey, and another triple bogey at the par-five 5th. He found a brief foothold with back-to-back pars at the 11th and 12th. Then came the par-five 15th, one of the tougher holes on the course. He made 11. A sextuple bogey, his worst hole against par of the round. At that point it is no longer golf so much as a long negotiation with a green.

The round left Patterson further adrift at the bottom of the Wooden Spoon standings. The gap to the next-worst player stretched from three shots to five. Jon Baker, some distance above all this, still led both the Trophy and the Green Jacket.