Every so often in golf someone does something that causes everyone to sit up. The performance of Bernhard Langer in going round the Stadium Course in 67 yesterday was one such example. “A 67,” Ian Poulter said when he heard. “Standing on the 9th tee with a chance for a 29? That’s impressive. That’s Langer. He’s always been a grinder.”

A grinder is too dismissive a word to use to describe such a remarkable performance. Langer, who will be 51 in three months’ time and first played in this event 23 years ago, is at five under par for his two rounds in The Players Championship, in joint second place with Paul Goydos and Sergio GarcÍa, and one stroke behind Kenny Perry. Langer was one of only two players in the field to break 70, the other being Stephen Ames, of Canada, and the German did it even with three bogeys on his card.

“That was as well as I have ever played,” Langer said. “I had a week off last week. My back, my shoulder, my knee were sore.” He laughed as he said that. Langer loves to play the injured warrior when in reality he is fitter than many men half his age. “I am a very active person,” he said. “I never sit still, even when I am at home. I eat well and I have a very fast metabolism.”

Little was going Langer’s way when he teed off at 12.30. The wind was gusting at up to 35mph and he was playing at the more difficult time when the greens had been walked over by at least 75 pairs of shoes and had direct sunlight on them for seven or eight hours, causing them to harden.

It is in conditions such as these that Langer thrives. His mental strength is such that he simply will not let anything get him down. He was clearly in exceptional form when he eagled the 2nd and had four birdies thereafter, all his putts being inside 15 feet. Standing on the 9th tee he needed an eagle to achieve something no one has done before and that is go out in 29.

He failed to set a record, however, tugging his approach into a bunker and taking three more strokes to hole out but his effort showed up Europe’s younger guns in Justin Rose, 27, and Paul Casey, 30, both of whom failed to reach the last two rounds. Casey was nine over par, Rose seven over.

Poulter knew the full merit of Langer’s play. He had been one group ahead and his play flickered like a guttering candle as he fought with the unyielding course and the capricious wind. Poulter twice got to five under par but then the wind got his tee shot on the short 13th and his ball ended 70 feet from the flagstick, from which he three putted and then he ran up a six on the par-four 15th. “I’d like to be three shots better but I am not,” Poulter said. “I am still in it. I have to play well tomorrow.”

Anthony Kim had earlier been the name on everyone’s lips. Kim, 22, who was born in Los Angeles of Korean parents, is one stroke behind Langer and this five days after he spread-eagled a world-class field to win the Wachovia Championship by five strokes. That victory was greeted with acclaim because Kim is ten years younger than Tiger Woods and his victory was the fifth in the past six events this year by golfers in their twenties. “In Kim, have we found Tiger’s heir?” one golf magazine asked.

Players are supposed to be worn out after a victory, inundated with requests and tired physically and mentally. Not Kim. The young man who started playing golf at 2 seems to be riding a wave and though he does say he is tired there were only occasional signs of it in his 70.

“Today was the best ball-striking round I’ve had in the past six days’ golf but my putter was a little cold,” Kim said. “I love anything good that is attached to my game right now because I feel like I’m doing the right things and making good decisions.”