Holmes (68) stands up to Oakland Hills

Long-hitting J.B. Holmes is the only player under par after 36 holes at the 90th PGA. (Associated Press)

BLOOMFIELD TOWNSHIP, Mich. - With pulsating sunshine and warm breezes providing soothing accompaniments yesterday, the festivities at Oakland Hills Country Club offered the perfect backdrop for a day of slumber.

At least until 3:54 p.m., that is, because a thunderous roar shook the landscape and awakened those keeping watch of the second round of the 90th PGA Championship. The quickest of glances focused on whatever shot had nestled close to the hole at the seventh green, but no, that was not it. Instead, a roar - OK, more accurately it was polite applause - was for a Davis Love approach that had landed on the putting surface, albeit 30 feet short.

Rarely has a routine green in regulation elicited such excitement, but then again, rarely has a major championship offered such a combination of tractor pull and root canal - without the anesthesia, no less. If all the pretournament forecasts about a long course framed by Brillo pad rough and firm greens that won't hold an approach shot didn't get players' attention, two days around this diabolical layout surely has.

But if with their evening meal they had aspirin, it's probably true that the majority consumed an after-dinner drink of reality, one that could have been concocted by Ben Curtis.

"You just have to accept it," he said. "You don't have to like it."

Oh, there's no fear of that, because even the chap who has sprinted to the 36-hole lead at a mere 1-under-par 139, J.B. Holmes, sounded like he had just taken part in the truck-pull portion of the program. Or was it the root canal? It's so hard to tell, but either way, one of the longest hitters in the game, Holmes was short with his assessment of a day in which he shot 2-under 68, one of only six sub-par rounds.

"It was really frustrating to do that," he said.

He apparently wasn't speaking for the 82 players who shot 75 or higher or the 11 who went for 80 or worse on a day when the field average was 74.845, because understandably they had more colorful (though unprintable) descriptions of what took place. But after nearly 13 hours of golf that provided more chills than thrills, it was left for some to provide perspective.

"Brutal. Absolutely brutal," said Brandt Snedeker.

"The golf course is so nasty right now, just nasty," said Rocco Mediate.

And those are lads, mind you, who earned the right to play two more rounds, Snedeker having shot 71 -142, Mediate 74 -147. They are among the 73 players who finished at 8 over or better to make the cut, though it wasn't until a series of bumbling, fumbling finishes by even the most prominent names that the halfway picture came into view.

Holmes, who chose to fight fire with fire - that is, his brute strength driver against Oakland Hills's brute strength - went out in 34, then strung together three consecutive birdies for a matching 34 on the back that was good enough for a one-stroke lead over Curtis and Justin Rose, both of whom shot 67, and Charlie Wi (70).

"I'm sure I'm an underdog," said Wi, playing in just his 73d PGA Tour event. He's played far more extensively in Asia and on the Nationwide Tour, so it was understandable to ask what he was doing here, in contention at a major championship.

Wi laughed. "I don't know why my fortunes have changed."

David Toms (69) and Henrik Stenson (70) are at 1-over 141, two strokes back; while a logjam at 2 over includes Snedeker, Angel Cabrera (72), Aaron Baddeley (71), Ken Duke (73), Sean O'Hair (73), Jeev Milkha Singh (74), and Sergio Garcia (73), whose four-putt, double-bogey 5 at the 238-yard 17th surely had him spitting mad.

Not true. "It wasn't a struggle at all," said Garcia. "It's very difficult and this is a major - it's not supposed to be easy."

No argument there, but to so many players - and maybe even the fans who've had little to cheer about - the flip side of it is: Should it be this monotonous and flat-out difficult?

The evidence was dragged forth, how for two days there have been 611 sub-par holes but a mind-boggling 1,840 bogeys or worse, meaning for every birdie, a fan has seen three bogeys. It was brought to the attention of none other than Phil Mickelson that only one player - Anthony Kim - had managed to birdie the long and difficult 17th, and that was thanks to a chip-in. Furthermore, only two of 155 players had recorded a birdie at the 498-yard, par-4, dogleg right 18th. Oh, and another thing: The 16th, 17th, and 18th holes featured just 42 birdies against 322 bogeys and 81 double bogeys or worse, meaning . . .

"You know, look," said Mickelson, who had gotten the point. "I've got to play this thing two more times and I don't really want to go into whether or not it's fair or what have you. Everybody's got to play this course."

On that point, Mickelson is correct, but everybody also seems to have an opinion about what is going on here, and very little of it is favorable. While many players will not question the added length, the narrow fairways, or the fact that they're being pushed to the limit, they have openly wondered why there has been a need to send an army of workers out to "brush up" the thick and gnarly rough so that it stands straight up and devours balls whole. So, too, do they suspect that the greens have become so dry and firm that they're beyond hope and present so much speed that the hole locations have become borderline silly.

"I think that the raking of the grass away from the grain has made it very difficult," said Mickelson. "And given the fact that the greens are firm and fast and you can't control your spin [on the ball], it is difficult to get it up and down."

As if to prove his point, Mickelson plunged from near the top of the leaderboard when he failed to execute greenside up-and-downs at the par-4 14th, par-4 15th, and par-3 17th, and made three bogeys. Having pushed to even par and one back after a birdie at the par-3 13th, the lefthander fell four strokes back, sitting 3-over 143, tied for 14th with six others.

Not the best of finishes, but surely Mickelson had a better day than many others.

Robert Karlsson, for instance. The first-round co-leader after a 68, the big Swede shot 77 -145 and fell into a share of 26th. Billy Mayfair, for another. He had begun the day at 69, one off the lead, but finished in 78, which was his score, not his age, though he probably felt it could have been, sitting there in joint 48th, now eight behind. Andres Romero is another, for he had been a stroke behind after an opening 69, only to tumble into T-48 with a 78 that included a quadruple bogey at the 16th and a double at the 18th.

Ah, but even for those men, there is a perspective that can heal their wounds. They didn't play the ninth like Vijay Singh, who reached the green, putted it off, pitched it back on, then three-putted for a triple bogey that served as the punctuation mark to a 76 -152 effort that left him on the wrong side of the cut. Nor did they have an 11-hole stretch like Colin Montgomerie - two double bogeys, seven bogeys, two pars - in a round of 84 -160 that enabled him to beat just five players, all of them club pros.

"I think everyone's coming in having stories and I've got my own story," said Montgomerie, at 45 a fast-fading presence on the world stage, though he was asked if he were aware of what was going on.

"No. I wasn't conscious of much," he said.

That's because like the rest of his colleagues, Montgomerie had been knocked out by a golf course that had been set up to do just that.

Jim McCabe can be reached at jmccabe@globe.com.