Richard Coughlan made his seventh cut in 10 US tour events this season by shooting a second round of 73 in the Shell Houston Open yesterday. It gave Coughlan a half-way total of 145 on the par-72 Woodlands stretch, to be seven strokes behind the early leader, Dan Forsman.

Compatriot, Keith Nolan, seeking his fifth cut in nine events, was a late starter but he, too, looked like qualifying for the weekend after an opening round of 70 on Thursday.

Coughlan, currently 168th in the money list with earnings of $24,155, had what he described as a "real roller-coaster round", in difficult, windy conditions. It included five birdies, two doublebogeys and two bogeys.

"I'm very happy with the way I played but I got a few bad breaks," he said afterwards. Two of those, he claimed, were at the fourth and 13th where he was in water to card double-bogeys. But he also had the satisfaction of crashing a huge drive of 325 yards down the long sixth to set up a two-putt birdie.

Starting on the 10th, he finished the back nine with splendid birdies at the 17th (25-foot putt) and 18th (holed chip), where he had scored bogeys in a 72 on Thursday. So he was one under at the turn before going two under for the tournament with a birdie three at the second, where he wedged to 10 feet.

From there, however, his play became somewhat ragged. "I began to get desperate when the fourth and fifth holes cost me three strokes," he admitted. After the birdie on the sixth, however, he looked set for a level-par finish until he missed the green at the ninth, his last, for a bogey five.