Put a driver that works for him in Wilco Nienaber’s hands, and it can turn into a magic wand as it did on Friday when he shot a six-under-par 65 in the second round of the DP World Tour’s Turkish Airlines Open at Regnum Carya in Antalya, Türkiye.

“I don’t think there’s a golf course where length doesn’t help, when it goes straight as well” said Nienaber. “I did some work with Ping with my driver, I got a totally different driver, and it’s obviously doing the job.” The result was seven birdies and just a single bogey as he reached nine-under-par at the halfway mark of the tournament in sole possession of second place.

He was two strokes behind the leader, Martin Couvra of France, who added a five-under 66 to his opening 65 to reach 11-under. One stroke behind Nienaber in third on his own was China’s Haotong Li, who also had a six-under 65 in the second round.

“Early on, I thought it was going to be pretty tricky,” said Nienaber of his round which had an early bogey on the fourth when he pushed his tee shot way right. Despite putting his second on the green, he contrived to three-putt.

Perhaps that was a function of putting on afternoon greens, of which Li said, “I think the grass grew up a little bit, felt like my hair. Sometimes it doesn’t go where I want it to.”

Whatever the case, for the rest of the round, Nienaber putted well. “I guess every week if you putt well, you’ll be in the mix,” he said. “The way I play, if you have a good putting week, I know I’ll be close to making a breakthrough. If I can do more of the same, it will be great.”

More of the same means being able to pull driver on the tees where he should, and trusting that things go the way he likes and the way fans like even more. It all seemed to fall into place in Friday’s round. “ On the mental side I’ve worked through a few things going around the course, and I managed to do that today,” he said. “The result was a great round.

“I’m in a better space mentally this week. A few things about my game have been sorted out and I’m feeling good on a personal level too.”

An indication of how things fell into place was the way he handled the 10th hole, which served up 41 bogeys, 17 doubles, four triples and a quadruple – and only 14 birdies. “Everybody struggled on the 10th hole, I birdied that. The key to that was three really good shots,” laughed Nienaber. “I hit a really good tee-shot, and then hit a nine-iron to eight feet and holed the putt.”