Dougherty in good Nick at Wentworth

Luke Donald had a hole-in-one, but it was Nick Dougherty who set the clubhouse target when the BMW Championship resumed after a 60-minute rain delay at Wentworth today.

Joint overnight leader Donald aced the 154-yard second hole and led by three at one point.

But while he bogeyed the seventh and ninth and then double-bogeyed the 15th, his former Walker Cup partner Dougherty birdied four of the last seven holes.

That gave the 24-year-old Liverpudlian a three-under-par 69 to add to his opening 67 and on eight under he led by two from Swede Robert Karlsson – out in a superb 32 despite a strong wind replacing the rain – and by three from France’s Francois Delamontagne.

Donald was back to four under with one to play, as was Paul Casey, the other Englishman who led overnight, after 15 holes of his second round.

South African Andrew McLardy was the fourth player to start with a 67, but he could post only a 74 and was back to three under.

Donald’s shot on the second, with a seven-iron, spun into the cup to the cheers of the few spectators braving the miserably wet conditions and took him into a two-stroke lead at seven under.

It was the first ace the 28-year-old has had on the European Tour, but while it came on the same hole where Isao Aoki famously won a house at Gleneagles in an early World Match Play Championship, the prize of a BMW sports car is on offer at the short 14th this week.

Darren Clarke and Ryder Cup points leader Henrik Stenson, paired together, were in a battle to survive the halfway cut at four over with three to play, while Lee Westwood almost certainly had no chance of making it through when he stood seven over with only two to go.

If he failed it meant the Worksop golfer would have crashed out of his last five events, three in the States starting with the Masters and two on his return to Europe.

At one over after a 73, Colin Montgomerie was trying to avoid an eighth missed cut in his last 10 tournaments, but he was among the later starters.

After a week of heavy rain the latest downpour led to officials not only delaying the resumption, but also changing the hole locations on three of the greens – the first, fourth and 16th – so that they were in drier positions.

But it looked like being a stop-start day with parts of the West Course already saturated and the players preparing to tee off had to dodge puddles on the practice putting green.

Donald had been critical of the course set-up for the opening round, saying: “The European Tour were cautious. I think you would not have seen that in America.

“It really didn’t seem to play too difficult. I was thinking coming down the 18th that when I do play in Europe the courses generally are a little more generous off the tee, the rough isn’t quite as thick and they don’t tuck the pins quite as much as they do on the US Tour.

“You can short-side yourself out here and still get up and down and make par and it’s not too big of a deal.

“At the US Open you’re not going to get away with it. I think that is part of the reason why we haven’t been very successful in majors, especially the US Open.”

The last winner of that title was Tony Jacklin in 1970 and no European has won any major since Paul Lawrie at the 1999 Open.

Tournament director David Garland pointed out, however, that the tee on the third had been moved forward 70 yards because otherwise drives would have been landing on an unplayable part of the fairway.