Barry walks down memory lane in Singapore

WITH his 500th European Tour event looming, England's Barry Lane finds himself in contention for his first victory in a decade.

Lane carded a superb second round 65 in the Caltex Masters in Singapore, his 496th event since joining the tour in 1982.

It gave the 43-year-old a share of second place on eight under par alongside Ireland's Damien McGrane, New Zealand's Eddie Lee, India's Jyoti Randhawa and American Greg Hanrahan, one shot behind surprise leader Mardan Mamat from Singapore.

Lane has not won a strokeplay event since the fourth of his tour titles in 1994 but retains an amazing infectious enthusiasm in his 23rd year on the circuit. "Only another six years and I'll be on the Seniors Tour," joked Lane, who has spent more than half his life walking the golf courses of the world.

"Twenty three years on tour is a long time but I love it, absolutely love it. I don't enjoy the travelling so much but I love the competitiveness, playing with young guys. I played with Charl Schwartzel in Qatar last year and asked him how old he was. He said '18' which meant I was 25 years older than him. I could be his dad!

"It's a young man's game really but there are still a lot of guys in the their 40s playing really well, Mark O'Meara won in Dubai aged 47 only two weeks ago.

"You can get stale but although I play quite a lot I don't practice much so I don't tire myself out."

Elsewhere, yoga and varicose veins were the unlikely topics of conversation on a day which saw 12 players unable to complete their second rounds because of the knock-on effect of Thursday's delay. Randhawa credited his yoga guru for a flawless 64 which moved him into a share of second place, while Kiwi Michael Campbell continued his comeback from an operation on his varicose veins which revealed a number of potentially life-threatening blood clots.

Campbell was four off the pace after a second round 70, one ahead of Colin Montgomerie, his main rival for a place in next week's Players Championship in Florida.

The New Zealander began the week at 52nd in the world rankings and needs a good finish to try to move inside the top 50 to book his place at Sawgrass a goal shared by Montgomerie, who is 51st. But Campbell's main aim is simply to get back to playing regularly after the operation on his varicose veins three months ago.

"Whenever I flew on long haul flights my left leg was aching a lot," explained Campbell, who played with just 13 clubs on Thursday after one of the club heads came off in his hands on the practice range.

"I went to see a specialist and he told me I had to have them taken out. When he took them out he found three clots, which could have been devastating."

"I need to wear compression stockings now whenever I fly. It's not a sexy thing but it's what I have to do. Mike Weir (US Masters champion) has got the same problem and it's very common for athletes who fly a lot."