All smiles from Paul McGinley after a second-round 67. [David Ferguson / China.org.cn]

Paul McGinley, who went round in 67 to end the day on 3-under – the only player from the morning starters to shoot low – put his finger on it. "It's not a golf course that you can over-power like the courses we played in the desert at the start of the season. A lot of the courses we play these days are power golf courses but this course is not like that. So many of the greens are difficult to hit even from the fairway. They are firm and a lot of them are sloping away from you, so good shots do not necessarily get a reward."

McGinley finished his round before most of Thursday's leaders had started theirs, just after Chapchai Nirat had posted 4-under in the clubhouse. As the morning wore on, the breeze mounted, and no low scores came in, it seemed that Nirat and McGinley might find themselves at the top of the leaderboard by the end of the day.

This impression was reinforced as par became more of a challenge for those first-round leaders who started in the afternoon. Richard Finch briefly threatened. He played impeccable golf for the first 13 holes, and birdied four of them to move to the lead on his own at 5-under. With five left to play he was within hailing distance of a bogey-free round, something that no-one has yet managed this week.

But it seems that 14 is determined to become the graveyard of aspiring challengers. The stats tell their own story: it has yielded only nine birdies in two days – only three on day 2 – and it has cost more bogeys than it has granted pars, not to mention the doubles, trebles, and quadruples. At 4.86, its first round score average was higher than the par-5 10th and 13th holes – 4.79 and 4.74 respectively.