JOHANNESBURG, January 15 – Charl Schwartzel kept in touch with the lead on Friday as he carded a three-under-par 68 for a halfway total of 131 in the €1.3-million Joburg Open being played on the Royal Johannesburg and Kensington East and West courses.

He will have to wait longer for his third round tee-off, however, after a second lightning delay halted play for the day with 30 players yet to complete their rounds.

Play will resume at 7am on Saturday for those 30, and the third round will begin at 9.20am.

After his eight-under in the first round on the easier West course – the West course is 6,509 metres (7,119 yards) and the East is 6,940 metres (7,592 yards) – Schwartzel finished one shot off the pace set by England's David Lynn who went four-under on the East course.

The tournament is the richest of the four Sunshine Tour events co-sanctioned by the European Tour, and is the fourth in the 2010 Race to Dubai.

Danny Willett of England headed a group of four players on 10-under 132 after he went six-under on the West course.

With him was veteran Hendrik Buhrmann of South Africa, who romped around the West course in seven-under 65.

The other two on 10-under were South Africa's Jbe' Kruger and Northern Ireland's Darren Clarke. Kruger followed his opening eight-under on the West with a solid two-under on the East, while Clarke was frustrated by his failure to sink a relatively simple birdie chance on 18 which would have taken him to 11-under with playing partner Schwartzel.

Schwartzel's three-under was bogey-free, and he seems to have found the kind of consistency which wins tournaments – he dropped just five shots in last week's Africa Open victory, and has dropped just two so far this week with a double-bogey on the back of a four-putt in his opening round.

"It seems like the form from last week is carrying over and with a good weekend, if I play like I'm playing, it could get very interesting," he said.

With some tough pin-placements on the East course, Schwartzel was content to make sure he kept mistakes out of his game: "If you can eliminate the mistakes, you're always going to be playing good golf," he said.

And he made a big 10-footer for birdie on 18 which took him one shot closer to Lynn than he might have been. "You need to make those little 10 or 12-footers to keep you in the tournament," he said.

Lynn was also happy with his putter after he opened with a 63 on the West course and followed it with his 67 on the East course.

"I got off to a good start, hitting it stiff on the first for birdie, and that put me in a good frame of mind," he said. "I continued to play like I was playing yesterday. Yesterday I was a bit tentative with the putter. Today it was much easier though," he added.

Defending champion Anders Hansen of Denmark is certain to miss the cut, which will probably be at three-under. He fired a three-under 68 on the West course to finish on two-over at halfway.

Scores (RSA unless specified):

-12 - David Lynn (ENG) 63 67

-11 - Charl Schwartzel 63 68

-10 - Danny Willett (ENG) 65 67, Jbe' Kruger 63 69, Hendrik Buhrmann 68 64, Darren Clarke (NIR) 63 69

-9 - James Kamte 67 66, Keith Horne 68 65, Hennie Otto 67 66

-8 - Oliver Bekker 70 64, Neil Schietekat 62 72, Paul Broadhurst (ENG) 66 68, Andrew McLardy 67 67

-7 - Darren Fichardt 67 68, Jaco Van Zyl 71 64, Joost Luiten (NED) 66 69, Peter Whiteford(SCO) 66 69, Kevin Stone 72 63, Raphael Jacquelin (FRA) 66 69, Deane Pappas 67 68, Alejandro Canizares (ESP) 66 69, Simon Thornton (IRL) 70 65, John Parry (ENG) 66 (-2) [15], Andrew Curlewis 68 (-4) [15]

-6 - Titch Moore 68 68, Louis Oosthuizen 70 66, Marcel Siem (GER) 67 69, Jacques Blaauw 68 68, Gary Lockerbie (ENG) 70 66, TC Charamba (ZIM) 68 68, Robert Dinwiddie (ENG) 70 66, Carl Suneson (ESP) 66 70, Richard Sterne 67 69, Soren Hansen (DEN) 66 70, Warren Abery 69 67, Neil Cheetham (ENG) 67 69, Clodomiro Carranza (ARG) 65 (Par) [15]

-5 - Mark Brown (NZL) 71 66, Adilson da Silva (BRA) 66 71, Branden Grace 67 70, Marc Cayeux (ZIM) 70 67, Simon Khan (ENG) 63 74, Shaun Norris 67 70, Tjaart van der Walt 67 70, Ariel Canete (ARG) 68 69, Barry Lane (ENG) 65 72, Alan McLean (SCO) 71 66, Michael Hoey (NIR) 68 69, Ross Wellington 68 69, Alex Haindl 71 66

-4 - Josh Cunliffe 68 70, Justin Walters 71 67, Andrew Marshall (ENG) 69 69, Alexandre Kaleka (FRA) 71 67, Christian Ries 68 70, Dawie Van der Walt 70 68, Michael Lorenzo-Vera (FRA) 70 68, Jamie Elson (ENG) 71 (-4) [15], Grant Muller 71 (-4) [15], Christiaan Basson 67 (Par) [15]

-3 - Trevor Fisher Jnr 72 67, Dave Horsey (ENG) 68 71, Brandon Pieters 70 69, Phillip Price (WAL) 72 67, Julien Quesne (FRA) 69 70, Prinavin Nelson 71 68, Theunis Spangenberg 71 68, Rhys Davies (WAL) 73 66, Robert Rock (ENG) 68 71, Edoardo Molinari (ITA) 70 69, Sam Hutsby (ENG) 70 69, Carlos Rodiles (ESP) 69 70, Teboho Sefatsa 69 (-1) [15], Andrew McArthur (SCO) 65 (+3) [15], Marco Ruiz (PAR) 73 (-5) [15]

Missed the cut:-

-2 - Pelle Edberg (SWE) 67 73, Michiel Bothma 70 70, Ulrich van den Berg 72 68, Anders Hansen (DEN) 72 68, Doug McGuigan 68 72, Richard Finch (ENG) 72 68, James Morrison (ENG) 69 71, Callum Macaulay (SCO) 70 70, Niall Kearney (IRL) 72 68, Benn Barham (ENG) 72 68, Francois Delamontagne (FRA) 72 68, Matthew Zions (AUS) 65 75, Matthew Carvell 69 71, Nic Henning 72 68, Tyrone van Aswegen 67 73, Kenneth Ferrie (ENG) 69 71, Alastair Forsyth(SCO) 64 76, Magnus A Carlsson (SWE) 70 70, Phillip Archer (ENG) 70 70, Klas Eriksson (SWE) 69 71, Peter Baker (ENG) 67 73, Gary Murphy (IRL) 73 67, Ryan Tipping 72 (-3) [15], Vaughn Groenewald 69 (Par) [15], Fredrik Andersson Hed (SWE) 69 (Par) [12]

-1 - Andre Bossert (SUI) 72 69, Julien Guerrier (FRA) 69 72, David Drysdale (SCO) 72 69, Chris Swanepoel 71 70, Paul Lawrie(SCO) 68 73, Reggie Adams 67 74, Sion E Bebb (WAL) 69 72, Mark F Haastrup (DEN) 70 71, Desvonde Botes 67 74, Martin Maritz 71 70, Bradford Vaughan 72 69, Jaco Ahlers 67 74, Carlos Del Moral (ESP) 69 72, Thomas Aiken 73 68, George Coetzee 69 72, Miles Tunnicliff (ENG) 73 68, Stephen Gallacher (SCO) 72 69, Dion Fourie 70 71, Gary Boyd (ENG) 68 73, Henrik Nystrom (SWE) 66 (+4) [15], Toto Thimba (Jnr) 72 (-2) [15]

Par - Lorenzo Gagli (ITA) 71 71, Clinton Whitelaw 71 71, Jamie McLeary (SCO) 68 74, James Kingston 73 69, Jean Hugo 72 70, Jarmo Sandelin (SWE) 69 73, Joakim Haeggman(SWE) 71 71, Louis Moolman 72 70, Danny Lee (NZL) 70 72, Benjamin Hebert (FRA) 71 71, James Ruth (ENG) 74 68, Steven Jeppesen (SWE) 69 73, Mark Murless 70 72, Eirik Tage Johansen (NOR) 69 73, Patrik Sjoland (SWE) 72 70, Lee Slattery (ENG) 72 (-1) [15], Richard McEvoy (ENG) 68 (+3) [15], Andrew Tampion (AUS) 73 (-2) [15], Lindani Ndwandwe 72 (-1) [15], Charlie Ford (ENG) 70 (+1) [15]

+1 - Jake Roos 68 75, Chris Wood (ENG) 70 73, David Hewan 71 72, Steven O'Hara (SCO) 72 71, Louis de Jager 72 71, David Dixon (ENG) 69 74, Andre Cruse 74 69, Anton Haig 68 75, Oliver Fisher (ENG) 69 74, Eugen Marugi 74 (-2) [15]

+2 - Scott Hend (AUS) 69 75, Thabang Simon 70 74, Sam Little (ENG) 74 70, Warrick Druian 73 71, Anthony Michael 77 67, Mohamed Tayob 73 71, Stuart Manley (WAL) 74 70, Dylan Frittelli (AMA) 68 76, Tyrone Mordt 69 75, Steve Basson 72 72, Byron Smith (USA) 74 (-1) [15], Francois Calmels (FRA) 73 (Par) [15], Ryan Cairns (ZIM) 71 (+2) [12]

+3 - Peter Lawrie (IRL) 74 71, Paulo Pinto (ARG) 69 76, Tyrone Ferreira 73 72, Stephan Gross Jr (GER) 70 75, Irvin Mazibuko 70 75, Willie van der Merwe 77 68, Des Terblanche 72 73, Merrick Bremner 73 72, Fredrik Ohlsson (SWE) 72 73, Albert Pistorius 72 73, Jake Redman 73 (+1) [15], Keenan Davidse 75 (-1) [15], Chris Gane (ENG) 74 (Par) [15]

+4 - David Howell (ENG) 73 73, Paul Waring (ENG) 69 77, Omar Sandys 74 72, Stuart Anderson (CAN) 71 75, Steve van Vuuren 75 71, Daniel Greene 72 74, Charl Coetzee 72 74, Gary Clark (ENG) 73 73

+5 - Craig Liebenberg 76 71, Divan van den Heever 75 72, Darren Holder 74 73, Roope Kakko (FIN) 69 78, Dale Whitnell (ENG) 71 76, Jean-Francois Lucquin (FRA) 71 76

+6 - Jean-Baptiste Gonnet (FRA) 72 76, Scott Drummond (SCO) 70 78, Daniel Brunson (USA) 71 77

+7 - Rick Kulacz (AUS) 76 73, Chris Williams 79 70, Brett Liddle 73 76

+8 - Daniel Vancsik (ARG) 74 76, Andrew Georgiou 76 74, Markus Brier (AUT) 77 73, Michael Dreyer 72 (+7) [15]

+9 - Sipho Sithole (AMA) 76 75, Cameron Johnston 74 (+6) [15]

+10 - Ali Tsai (TPE) 73 79, Dean Lambert 77 75

+11 - Adrian Ford 72 81

+14 - Muswalo Nethunzwi (AMA) 81 75

+20 - Emmanuel Masoliedza (AMA) 79 (+12) [15]

+21 - Alpheus Kelapile 77 (+15) [12]

RTD - Jose-Filipe Lima (POR) 71 RTD