Charl Schwartzel was frustrated with his putter but remained in contention at the Joburg Open as he finished the second round on 10-under-par, five strokes behind leaders Trevor Fisher Jnr and Richard Sterne at the Royal Johannesburg and Kensington Golf Club on Friday.

The two-time Joburg Open champion shot a six-under-par 65 on the West Course on Friday, but with several short putts being missed, Schwartzel felt he should have been in an even stronger position.

“My putter was the problem, I’ve missed five putts from inside three feet on the last two days and that’s very frustrating. It was even more frustrating today because I hit two or three very nice long putts and that’s the hard part. On 10, I missed a putt from one-and-a-half feet, if I’d tapped it with one-hand I probably would have made it!”, Schwartzel complained.

The world number 18 was otherwise happy with the state of his game as he looks to add to the titles he won in 2010 and 2011 at the historic Linksfield course.

“My ball-striking was good, where I left off last year. So the big thing is that I’m hitting the ball well and giving myself chances. I just need to make more putts from short range,” Schwartzel said.

The 2011 Masters champion shot a solid 68 on the tougher East Course in the first round, but eight birdies and just two dropped shots on Friday saw him rise from a tie for 25th into the top four.

The “gimme” putt missed on 10 accounted for bogey there, while Schwartzel also felt aggrieved about his drop on the par-five 15th, when his approach shot hopped over the green.

“That was a mystery. Branden Grace had just hit a four-iron from five yards behind me into the middle of the green, so I wanted to hit a soft five-iron, but it went 40 metres over. I also missed a three-foot putt, to be fair,” Schwartzel said.

If Schwartzel turns it on, he’s obviously in a different league to the rest of the field and the 28-year-old feels that he is in striking range of Fisher, whose top-class 62 put him on 15-under. Sterne joined him later with a brilliant 65 on the East Course.

A missed cut last year when he was defending his title has added a steely air of determination to Schwartzel and a phenomenal run at the end of 2012 means he is playing with a lot of confidence.

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The Nedbank Golf Challenge enters its third round at the Gary Player Country Club on Saturday and, thus far, the scoring has not set the world alight.

In fact, it is Bernhard Langer, the 55-year-old leader of the Champions Challenge who has been the most impressive golfer thus far. The German’s nine-under-par tally after two rounds has given him a four-shot lead over Jay Haas in the concurrent tournament for senior golfers, but Langer is five shots better off than the NGC leader, Scotsman Paul Lawrie.

The secret to Langer’s success has been clear-thinking, wise strategy and successful execution that has seen him generally avoid the brutal rough which often waits just a couple of metres off the fairway.

Lawrie has followed a similar, conservative strategy and has recorded just two bogeys, one on each day, in 36 holes thus far.

“Experience has a lot to do with it, probably nobody has played this course as much as me – it’s my 16^th tournament here. I played well, just hitting fairways and greens, but it’s important to hit the ball in the right spot here,” Langer said.

While Langer, Haas and defending seniors champion Mark Calcavecchia have all enjoyed sub-par rounds on both days, the NGC regular pros have generally struggled, with no one really conquering the Gary Player Country Club.

The result has been a bunched leaderboard with first round leaders Bill Haas, the son of Jay, and Nicolas Colsaerts slipping back down the field on Friday.

Haas admitted he was surprised that it was the seniors who were playing the better golf on the same course at the same time, their only allowance being that their tees have been moved forward.

“I’m surprised the big names are not doing better. We’re probably driving the ball where they’re driving it, then they probably take one club less from there. But the thing about Bernhard is that he does not make many mental errors, he doesn’t give strokes away.

“Having forward tees is definitely an advantage on a couple of holes and nobody in our tournament gets close to the distance of those 12 golfers in the main event. But the situation is a little unusual right now,” Haas said.

But Langer, typically, is not allowing himself to get carried away, even though the Champions Challenge enters its final round on Saturday.

“Four strokes sounds like a lot, but there is still a lot of golf to be played and this course can grab you anywhere, every hole can get you, so I still have to play a solid final round of golf. If I keep swinging and rolling the ball the way I did today, then I should be okay,” Langer said.

The two-time Masters champion has certainly given a masterclass at Sun City, one that the regular pros have not been able to match. While Langer has shot 68-67, the best rounds in the NGC have been Friday’s 69s shot by Lawrie and Martin Kaymer.

Retief Goosen on Friday criticised the set-up of the Fancourt Links after finishing the second round six shots off the pace in the Volvo Golf Champions.

The two-time SA Open champion – he won the last of his crowns here at Fancourt in 2005 – is unhappy at the amount of moisture on the course.

“The course is extremely soft and I’m quite surprised. I had two tee shots today that came back on the fairway and yesterday I had another that had mud on it. You’re playing a links out there and it’s playing like a parkland, so it’s quite disappointing the way they are setting it up.

“There’s no wind and the course is drenched – that’s why there’s so much low scoring out there,” Goosen said.

The 42-year-old nevertheless tackled the conditions with aplomb, getting straight down to business with birdies at the first two holes, and Goosen said a good start and consistent ball-striking had led him to his five-under-par 68 on Friday.

Goosen parred the next five holes, before claiming another pair of birdies at the eighth and ninth holes. Further birdies on the 11th and 13th holes lifted the two-time US Open champion to six-under for the round and in touch with the leaders, but the course bit back as he bogeyed the par-four 14th and 15th holes. But Goosen regained one of the strokes with a birdie on the par-five 16th.

Playing partner Lee Slattery would have an even better day as he put together a brilliant eight-under-par 65 that lifted him into a tie for second with South African Thomas Aiken.

“You have to be a bit more aggressive on this course, you just have to take on a few more shots,” Slattery said. “It was just one of them rounds I’m going to remember for the rest of my life and hopefully it can kickstart something for me. I think it’s probably the best round of my career, with it being such a big event, with so many great players and playing with Retief.”

Goosen, Slattery and English amateur Mark Vandenburghe combined brilliantly to win the Volvo World Golf Challenge.

The top 18 finishers in the World Golf Final qualified to play with the professionals on Friday and the 50-year-old Vandenberghe, Goosen and Slattery finished on a combined 18-under-par total of 128, to beat Masters champion Charl Schwartzel, England’s Simon Dyson and Austrian amateur Henning Frech by three shots.

The three-ball’s prize was a brand new Volvo for each golfer, which brightened Goosen’s mood considerably.

“How great is this? I didn’t even have to make a hole-in-one,” Goosen said.

Branden Grace attributed his success to having a feeling of calm on the course as he fired a seven-under-par 66 to storm into the lead after the second round of the Volvo Golf Champions at the Fancourt Links on Friday.

Grace reached the halfway stage on 12-under-par overall, four strokes ahead of Briton Lee Slattery and South African Thomas Aiken. The 23-year-old won the Joburg Open last week and is currently leading the Race to Dubai.

“I have a real calm out there which is a big relief. It’s great to keep the nerves down and just go out there and play golf. I’ve changed my routines a bit, I’m taking my time, sticking to what club I’m going to hit and keeping things as simple as possible. I’m just sticking to my game plan and minding my own business,” Grace told a news conference after his round.

Slattery produced the round of the day – an eight-under-par 65 – to join Aiken in a tie for second on eight-under, with Europe Ryder Cup captain Jose-Maria Olazabal alone in fourth-place on seven-under-par.

Nicolas Colsaerts, Louis Oosthuizen, Raphael Jacquelin, Hennie Otto, Paul Lawrie, Alexander Noren and Retief Goosen have all completed two rounds in 140 strokes, six-under-par.

Overnight leader Colsaerts, who shot a course-record 64 in the first round, came undone on the front nine, reaching the turn in four-over-par 40, but the Belgian got three birdies on the back nine to compensate for two more bogeys.

The 33-year-old Slattery birdied the first two holes to give himself the ideal start and then claimed three successive birdies from the fifth hole to maintain the momentum. The Englishman drained a 25-foot downhill birdie putt on the par-four 10th hole to make up for a bogey on the par-five ninth, and then collected four more birdies on the back nine, while dropping just the single shot, on the par-three 11th.

“It was just one of them rounds I’m going to remember for the rest of my life and hopefully it can kickstart something for me. I think it’s probably the best round of my career, with it being such a big event, with so many great players and playing with Retief Goosen,” Slattery said.

“I decided to play the course a bit more aggressively and hit a lot more drivers off the tees. I putted well and just took on a few more shots out there.”

Only winners of European Tour events in the previous year, plus active golfers who are under the age of 50 and have at least 10 career wins, are invited to the two million euro event, which pays out 350,000 euro to the winner.