CHARLOTTE, N.C. -- Sergio Garcia posed over a 9-iron that never reached the green. Vijay Singh felt the wind change in the middle of his swing. Tiger Woods watched a birdie chance disappear off the green and into the water. Blustery wind that swirled from all corners fooled some of the world's best players and turned the Wachovia Championship into a test of patience Friday. Garcia survived by playing bogey-free on the back nine for a 1-under 71, giving him a two-shot lead over Singh, defending champion Joey Sindelar and D.J. Trahan going into the weekend. "You make bogey, you've just got to realize ... it's going to happen," Garcia said. "You've just got to try to keep it up. You try as hard as possible to have fun." The biggest thrill was his position, at 7-under 137, his first 36-hole lead in nearly four years on the PGA TOUR. The wind calmed over the final two hours at Quail Hollow, and the scoring average dropped a half-shot to 74.6. The course was so fast that the field hit less than 50 percent of the fairways. "The bad news is you gave away a lot of shots," Furyk said after recovering for a 72. "But it's a hard course, and I'm sure a lot of other guys did, too. The goods news is I'm only four shots back with 36 holes to play." Masters runner-up Chris DiMarco, Greg Owen, and Trahan each posted a 67, the lowest round of a tough day, although all of them came in the afternoon when the wind died. The cut was at 4 over, and there 15 players within five shots of the lead. That included Woods, who has made 11 birdies the first two rounds. "If he's here, he's trouble. It's as simple as that," Sindelar said. "Same way with Vijay, defined entirely differently. Tiger is explosive ... where Vijay is just relentless." Phil Mickelson hit into the water on the par-3 17th and finished double bogey-bogey for a 73 that left him seven shots behind. All of them are chasing Garcia, who has been hitting the ball pure over the first two days at Quail Hollow. "If you're hitting the ball well and you're driving the ball well like I am, you're going to get some birdie chances," Garcia said. "If you manage to keep going on those tough holes and make pars, you're going to post a decent round that's not going to take you out of the tournament." Singh and Scott Verplank each had a 69 in the toughest conditions. Verplank, Brett Quigley (69) and Richard Johnson (72) were at 4-under 140, while Owen, DiMarco, Furyk and Jeff Sluman (70) were among those at 141. Sergio Garcia made three birdies during Friday's second round. (Marc Feldman/WireImage) Woods, who had a share of the lead early in the second round, made three bogeys over his last seven holes for a 72 and was five shots out of the lead at 2-under 142. "It was a frustrating finish," Woods said. "As well as I drove it all day, I didn't take advantage." Singh took the lead for the first time by playing a perfect shot off the slope to 5 feet on No. 12, only to give it back by getting fooled by the wind and missing the par-3 13th green by 20 yards. Still, he was in great shape heading into the weekend. "At times you think it's calm," Singh said. "You're going to be making contact with the ball and the wind comes up. The ball can go anywhere. This is the worst kind of wind, where it's up-and-down, up-and-down. There's no one consistent type of wind. It's blowing steady, and then all of a sudden, there's nothing there." Garcia's strangest moment came on the 16th, when he hit 9-iron from 164 with the wind supposedly in his favor. "I hit a great shot, straight at it, I'm thinking it's probably going to be 15 feet short of the hole," Garcia said. "And the wind switches a little bit, goes left-to-right, and (I'm) short of the green. I managed to get up-and-down, but sometimes you're posing thinking, 'Wow, what a shot!' And it makes you look a little stupid." He looked just fine by the end of the day, his name atop the leaderboard and his confidence rising.