Rory McIlroy declared himself "ecstatic" with a second-round 68 that put him firmly in contention heading into the weekend of The 146th Open.
McIlroy's challenge was in danger of being done and dusted after just six holes on the opening day when he slumped to five over, but he covered the first third of his second round in eight shots fewer.
The world No 4 battled hard to combat the strengthening south-easterly winds over the remainder of his round as his short game bailed him out of trouble on several occasions, although he could not avoid bogeys at 13 and 15 before he got one back at the 17th and parred the last to stay within three shots of early clubhouse leader Matt Kuchar.
McIlroy continued the momentum of his sparkling finish to his first-round 71, which he capped with three birdies over the last four holes, and a huge 372-yard three-wood down the first fairway set up a pitch and a putt set up an opening three.
He picked up another at the third and then tamed the sixth - the hardest-ranked hole at Royal Birkdale - as he smote a sublime approach to inside four feet and converted the putt to get to two under for the tournament.
McIlroy was then forced into scrambling mode in the tough conditions after the turn, but he holed clutch putts for par at the 11th and 12th and saved another from sand at the next, although he came up short with his second to 14 and dropped his first shot for 24 holes.
A blocked drive into thick rough at the long 15th also proved costly as he needed two attempts to get his ball back to short grass and ran up a bogey-six, but he got back on track with only the 10th birdie of the day at the penultimate hole.
A solid two-putt from distance on the final green rounded off an excellent day's work, and he said: "I'm very happy. I think anything around even par today is a great score.
"I got off to a good start, which was important. The back nine is playing really, really difficult, so to birdie three of the first six and give myself that little bit of a cushion to play with was nice. I made some key up-and-downs on the start of the back nine.
"To be in after two days and be under par for this championship after the way I started, I'm ecstatic with that. I hit some quality shots out there, I saw a lot of better iron shots and I saw some really good putts going in. So, yeah, there was a lot of quality out there and I was happy to see that. I just have to try to keep that going for the next two days.
"I set myself a target of being in a better position today than I was yesterday. I finished the first round one over and I wanted to be at least level par or under par if possible. And I've been able to achieve that goal that I set myself. They're both huge rounds for very different reasons, but this was definitely the round that got me back into the championship."
McIlroy has been struggling on the greens in recent weeks and even resorted to using three different putters during one tournament at the Travelers Championship, but he is a lot more comfortable with the short stick this week and needed only 24 putts on day two.
"They're the putts that haven't quite been going in over the past few weeks," he added. "That's all it takes to keep a round going, and to see those putts go in on 10 and 11 gives me a lot of confidence going into the weekend."