Howell hits form in Akron

David Howell started to make up for lost time today when he moved onto the leaderboard at the NEC World Championship in Akron.

The Ryder Cup player, who made his return from a two-month injury lay-off last week, sank 12-foot birdie putts on the first two greens and at two under par was up into a share of sixth place.

A good performance here could propel him into the elite 16-man field for the HSBC World Match Play Championship at Wentworth next month.

Howell, who tore an abdominal muscle warming up for his second round in the US Open in June, is still not back to full fitness but a good finish this weekend could secure him one of two Wentworth places on offer from the European Order of Merit.

Tiger Woods, Vijay Singh and Henrik Stenson led in the race for the first prize of €1.1m at four under par overnight.

The Swede, who stood six under with four to play yesterday, dropped another stroke straight away.

His drive down the 399-yard first was carved into the trees and his second caught the branches, coming down less than 50 yards in front of him.

Singh had to work hard for his par there as well, finding the fairway bunker and coming up short of the green before playing a superb chip to 18 inches.

Lee Westwood was another European quickly back into action but he three-putted the 10th and had another bogey on the 12th before recovering to four over with a birdie at the next.

Former Walker Cup partners Nick Dougherty and Luke Donald made disappointing starts too.

Three under and one under overnight respectively, both bogeyed the 11th, Dougherty after going long with his approach and Donald by going in sand short of the green.

Northumberland’s Kenneth Ferrie, on the other hand, birdied the third and, in his first US Tour event, was joint 15th with Donald.