Sergio sparkles as Woods struggles

The world number 13 added a level par 71 to his sparkling opening 65, A shot-a-hole improvement over the two days.

And with Woods' bid for a third successive Claret Jug hitting trouble from the moment he hooked an iron out of bounds off the first tee Garcia's six under par halfway total of 136 was always likely to keep him at the top of the leaderboard in the windy conditions.

South Korean KJ Choi, with two recent wins on the US Tour one place ahead of Garcia on the world rankings, looked for a while as if he might at least draw level with him after birdies at the 14th and 15th put him one behind.

But he was almost in the Barry Burn with his closing drive and with a bogey five had to settle for a second successive 69.

Choi was still second on his own, but out on the course Austrian Markus Brier and Americans Stewart Cink and Rich Beem all had the opportunity to improve on their three under position.

Alongside them, but in the clubhouse, was Garcia's fellow countryman Miguel Angel Jimenez (70), while Jim Furyk and Boo Weekley handed in two under aggregates and Lee Westwood and Alastair Forsyth were among those in on one under.

World number one Woods, joint eighth overnight on two under, double-bogeyed the first and after a birdie on the next dropped further shots on the fifth and eighth.

It could have been far worse for Woods. He was close to the out-of-bounds fence on the long sixth, scrambled a par at the ninth off a really poor approach into sand and then, for the second day running, had incredible good fortune on the 466-yard 10th when his approach could easily have ended up in the Barry Burn.

Instead his ball came down in the trees, narrowly missing two people blissfully unaware that they could have been hit, and with a clear path to the flag he salvaged another par. But he was seven behind at that point.