Zach Johnson three back at the PGA Championship

SHEBOYGAN, Wis. - You might remember Matt Kuchar from a younger, more innocent time, when he was the constantly smiling U.S. Amateur champion, when he wound up on leaderboards at the 1998 Masters and U.S. Open.

Kuchar still grins easily, even though golf has frowned on him at times. Now the second phase of his career is proceeding nicely, as his play at the PGA Championship has shown.

Kuchar, 32, shot 67-69 in the first two rounds and leads Nick Watney by one stroke after 36 holes at Whistling Straits.

Half the field still has to finish the second round Saturday morning, thanks to another fog delay. In that group is Tiger Woods, who remains at 1-under for the competition after six pars Friday.

Bryce Molder, Kuchar's teammate at Georgia Tech for three years, is at 5 under along with Jason Dufner (a tournament-low 66), Korean Seong-Yul Noh, Dustin Johnson, Rory McIlroy, Zach Johnson

and Englishman Simon Khan, who was tied with Kuchar until he bogeyed his final three holes.

Bubba Watson, the first-round leader, played nine holes Friday and made just three pars. He wound up at 3-under for the tournament.

Kuchar has nine top-10's on the PGA Tour this year and would be among the top eight qualifiers for the Ryder Cup team if the selection were made today. He is No. 9 on the PGA Tour money list.

He also has hit 23 of 28 fairways at Whistling Straits.

Kuchar has won two PGA Tour events but also lost his card in 2006, spending one year on the Nationwide Tour.

"I just look at it like it's golf," he said. "That's the great thing about the game. There's no guaranteed contract. You have to perform.

"When I first came out here I heard players talking about a 10-year learning curve. Then I won a tournament (Palm Beach) straightaway, so I didn't understand what they meant. Now it's been about 10 years and I'm realizing it."

Watney, a long hitter who won at San Diego in 2009 and has played well periodically in majors, shot 2-under on each nine.

Phil Mickelson will be around for the weekend although it looked dicey on his front nine. He lost a ball on the 18th hole, his ninth, and made double-bogey. That set him back to 1 over, but he rattled off four birdies on his final nine and stabilized at 2 under.

"I feel like I'm in striking distance," Mickelson said. "I grinded pretty hard just to get in today. You never know what can happen in a major. I shot 10-under on the weekend at Augusta."

Ernie Els was in the mix most of the day but double-bogeyed his 18th hole (the ninth) and faded to 2 under in his bid to win his first major championship in eight years.

Steve Stricker also was disappointed. Playing in front of his home-state fans, the world's fourth-ranked player suffered a triple-bogey on the par-3 17th and finished 36 holes at even-par.

The projected cut is 1-over par. Among those who finished worse than that were British Open champ Louis Oosthuizen, U.S. Open champ Graeme McDowell, Sean O'Hair and Justin Rose.