No sooner had Gary Hallberg completed an astonishing round of golf at Turnberry yesterday than the Tom Toms were pounding out the message that he is a player whose quality has yet to be recognised, even by himself.

The 54-year-old American's round may have been just one shot fewer than Bernhard Langer's in the opening round but this fabulous stretch of linksland had presented a much stiffer test than it had the previous day. On a course Langer had said might be too long for a Seniors event, knowing just how much tougher it would be if the wind picked up significantly – as it did yesterday causing many in the field to fail to break 80 – it was a performance of almost ridiculous excellence.

All the more so because before producing the run of eight birdies in 14 holes that meant he equalled the lowest score ever registered in a professional event at Turnberry – matching the 63s by Mark Hayes and Greg Norman in 1977 and 1986 respectively – came after he had been over par for the day after four holes. "It was one of the great days that I've had in many years on the golf course," he said afterwards. "It was just a pleasure. You don't get that many like this, you know. So it's fantastic . . . and now I'm going to pray for rain and wind."

Just what he had achieved was placed in perspective by two of the Open champions in this field, Toms Watson and Lehman. Even before he headed out Watson offered the observation that Hallberg is "a great player, but he doesn't know it."

When told about that, Lehman, whose one-over-par round of 71 moved him up to a share of second place with Langer, just three behind Hallberg, was tickled. "Is that what Tom said?" he laughed. "He [Hallberg] knows it sometimes. I would add to what Tom said . . . Gary is a great player and there are times he realises how great he is and other times when he doesn't.

"He's immensely talented. I think anybody who knows golf knows how incredibly gifted Gary Hallberg is. I think what Tom meant was that if he only realised it consistently he would be better off. So I'm happy for Gary. He's a very close friend of mine and I'm really happy for his good day."

However, Lehman's greatest tribute to what Hallberg had done was his assessment not of the comparison between what his fellow Americans had done over the two rounds, but of that between his own circuits. "I don't think you're ever happy in golf when you shoot the worst score you can possibly shoot, which was the case yesterday," he said of his opening 66. "However, you're always really pleased in golf when you seem to shoot the best score you can possibly shoot and that was more the case today."

That Watson, acknowledged as one of the masters of such conditions down the years, toiled to the turn in 38 strokes alongside Greg Norman, who was on his way to missing the cut, further illustrated the point.

Although more than 20% of the field having started the second day under par – 32 in all – only one other player, former US Masters champion Fred Couples, made progress in relation to par yesterday as the cut line rose and rose. By the end of the day only seven players remained under par, while even those who should know these conditions better than most played as if they were alien to them, with Ross Drummond and Bill Longmuir the only Scots among the 10 who started the event, to make the eight-over-par cut.

At six-under halfway leader Hallberg did, however, claim to have benefited significantly from local knowledge during a pre-tournament round on the other side of the country at The Renaissance Club in East Lothian last week. "I had a great caddie there," he said. "I asked him 'How do you handle the wind over here?' He said, 'We lean on the wind over here,' and I saw that as a positive. It kind of changed my thinking believe it or not, so today I leaned into the wind and it was favourable."

To receive such assistance from a stranger represented a stark contrast with the experience of another of his compatriots Pete Oakley – who suffered a two-stroke penalty yesterday not because of a lost ball, but due to the fact his wife Jennifer went missing on the course. Oakley's other half has been his caddie for the past four years but yesterday the age old question of whether marital partners should work together was placed under renewed scrutiny when she was gone for so long that Oakley was penalised two strokes under the 'undue delay' rule.

Having gone ahead to act as a ball spotter on the 13th hole, Jennifer mistook a ball landing in the rough from another group teeing off at the 10th as being from her husband's, and by the time she was alerted to her error by an official her club-less husband had held up play long enough to be penalised.

No real damage was done since he was already 10-over-par for the day on his way to an 83. "I might not have been laughing so much about it if the penalty had seen me miss the cut," said Oakley.