Cast in a supporting role to the more potent appeal of his playing partners, Per-Ulrik Johansson moved quietly into the halfway lead in the £850,000 Smurfit European Open at The K Club yesterday. The defending champion went a stroke clear of Colin Montgomerie, having equalled the course-record of 64 set by the Scot on Thursday.

Scoring was remarkably good yesterday, given the accepted difficulty of a course measuring 7,179 yards. In fact the two-under-par cut was the lowest in a European Tour event in this country since the Irish Open at Royal Dublin in 1984. The cut on that occasion was also two-under - but for a course 360 yards shorter than Straffan.

This was yet another reminder of the formidable standard of current tournament play. Effectively, in ideal conditions and with generous fairways, there was no real protection against the irresistible combination of professional skills and advanced club-and-ball technology.

Wind advantage on the first meant that three of the par fives were reachable in two. Only the 606-yard seventh retained its three-shot status, though Seve Ballesteros, after a long, wellplaced drive, elected to seek to make it in two. And, in a manner of speaking, he lost the election, running up a miserable seven.

Sadly, he also ran up a seven at the last where he paid the same price for a similar gamble. So, at two over par for the championship, the Ryder Cup skipper departed the scene, four strokes outside the cut. But he had still made a significant contribution to the day's play.

The jet-lagged Montgomerie was heading for an afternoon nap after completing a morning round of 69 for 133, when the three-ball of Johansson, Ballesteros and Padraig Harrington went into action. Predictably, they drew the biggest gallery of a day on which there was a record attendance of 16,342. And the fans made their presence felt, as wave after wave of cheering swept over the expansive venue.

Harrington could not have wished for a better start in that he birdied the first, second and fourth to be five under par for the tournament at that stage. Against that background, he was understandably subdued after a round of 71.

The trio's play of the long 13th was most revealing. First to hit, Ballesteros found the right side of the fairway and Johansson's drive took a short line down the left but didn't clear the rough. Then Harrington pulled his drive badly enough to strike a spectator, causing a minor cut under the chin.

Harrington then made the rather cavalier decision to play a three-wood recovery shot, where a short iron, down on to the fairway, would have been the more prudent choice. In the event, he blocked the shot into trees on the right from where it deflected into water. By the time he eventually two-putted, he had run up a miserable, bogey six.

Johansson, meanwhile, accepted his punishment and pitched on to the fairway from where he hit a six-iron to five feet. And the putt dropped for a most improbable birdie.

It was then the Spaniard's turn. With a beautifully rhythmic swing, reminiscent of his halcyon days, Ballesteros hit a four-wood of 232 yards to leave the ball 30 feet left of the pin. Revelling in his ability to produce such magic, albeit only on the odd occasion these days, he walked over to us and remarked with a grin: "Still life in the old man, no?"

He couldn't have been impressed, however, with Harrington's play of the hole. But the Irishman insisted afterwards: "I would play the same shot again. If anything I had a flying lie and my intention was to reach the front, greenside bunker, less than 238 yards away. Unfortunately, I changed my mind about the direction, midway through the swing."

Still, there had to be a moral in the two-stroke difference between the scores of himself and Johansson there. In short, it reflected the sort of superior decision-making that comes only with experience.

Harrington had recovered from a greenside trap to two feet for an opening birdie; he then reduced the second to a drive, eight iron and three-foot putt and went on to sink a 15-footer for another birdie at the fourth. And he maintained that position by scrambling a par at the treacherous seventh, where he sank a 25-footer.

A pushed drive, however, led to a bogey at the ninth for a second successive day. And after retrieving a position of two under for the round with a birdie at the 14th, he slipped back once more with a bogey at the last, where he was bunkered off the tee. Was the Ryder Cup a problem? "No," he replied. "In fact if I had thought about it a bit more it might have helped me to focus better on my game."

But there was nothing wrong with Johansson's focus. In fact the Swede couldn't remember when he had last hit so many good shots in a round. Which should not have been all that surprising, given his repeatedly-stated affection for the course.

In assessing his day's work, he said: "Normally, when I have a good round like I had today, I would hit only about three really pure shots. On this occasion, however, there were probably 10 that came off exactly the way I visualised them. It was a great time to do it, as defending champion and here in Ireland."

He then referred to the battle for Ryder Cup places which should no longer be a serious worry for him, given his current position of seventh in the table. "It felt a bit weird the way the pairings were set up, with Seve wanting to see how Padraig and I were playing," he said.

He went on: "But I tried not to think about it too much. If you think about the Ryder Cup too much, you get defensive."

The key to Johansson's score was a stunning outward journey of 31 that contained a run of four birdies from the second. These were the product of putts ranging from three to 20 feet in length, but he simplified the process by hitting a wedge to within a foot of the hole at the eighth.

Like Montgomerie had done on Thursday, he proceeded to keep a bogey off his card, breaking par at the long 13th, the 16th (with a 10foot putt) and at the 18th, which he reached with a three-iron second shot.

Montgomerie declined to take a sleeping-pill on Thursday night, hoping that nature would allow his body make the necessary adjustment from jet-lag. It didn't work, and he had only 90 minutes' sleep.

Still, he hit every fairway for a second successive day and his only missed green in 36 holes remained the eighth on Thursday. Why no pills? "I'd rather play with no sleep than fall asleep," he replied. One suspects that he will need to be wide awake over the weekend.