Round 2 Notebook: Allianz Championship

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Weather: Sunny with highs in the mid-70s and light wind from the NE at 5-10 mph.

Round 2 Leaderboard: T1 -- Tommy Armour III (-13), Tim Simpson (-13); T3 -- Bernhard Langer (-12), John Cook (-12); T5 -- Nick Price (-11), Tom Lehman (-11), Joey Sindelar (-11), Loren Roberts (-11).

• Armour and Simpson share the 36-hole lead at the 2010 Allianz Championship and their 13-under-par 131 score for two rounds is a tournament record. Six other players, including local favorites Bernhard Langer and Nick Price, are within two strokes of the lead. Here's some fun facts on tomorrow's final grouping:

• In his PGA TOUR career, Armour was a final-round leader/co-leader five times and went on to win twice, most recently at the 2003 Valero Texas Open. Simpson has never held the lead going into the final round of a Champions Tour event. The last time he was in this position was when he was tied for the lead at the 1991 Bob Hope Chrysler Classic and went on to finish second.

• Armour's run of five birdies in a row on the back nine today tied the best birdie streak of the year on the Champions Tour. Tom Watson made five straight birdies in the second round of the Mitsubishi Electric Championship at Hualalai and Dan Forsman made five straight birdies in the second round of last week's ACE Group Classic.

• Armour's 8-under 64 on Saturday means he's averaged a 64 in each of his last three rounds on the Champions Tour. Over his last 54 holes, Armour is a cumulative 24-under-par with 22 birdies, 2 eagles and two bogeys.

• With Fred Couples winning in his second career start last week in Naples and Armour making his second start on the Champions Tour this week, there's a chance for back-to-back rookie winners for the first time since 2008 when Bernhard Langer and John Cook claimed events in consecutive weeks late in the season.

• There were 62 rounds under par on Saturday compared to 45 under-par rounds Friday. There were 35 rounds in the 60s today versus 29 sub-70 scores in Round 1. Saturday's scoring average was 69.810 vs. 70.925 on Friday. The Saturday scoring average was the lowest for any round in the four-year history of this event.

• The par-5 18th hole at the Old Course at Broken Sound again played as the easiest. After averaging 4.400 yesterday, the hole yielded four eagles and 49 birdies today and had a stroke average of 4.354. The par-3 14th hole played as the hardest in Round 2, yielding just five birdes and playing to a stroke average of 3.316.

• Through two rounds, Langer has made the most birdies (15) ... Michael Allen has averaged 296.0 yards on the two holes used to measure drives this week, the longest of anyone in the field ... Nick Price leads in fairways hit off the tee with 24/28 (85.71%) ... John Cook has missed just two greens, hitting 34/36 (94.44%) ... Scott Simpson has averaged just 24.5 putts per round.

• Mike Podolak, a sponsor exemption this week from Allianz, rebounded from an opening-round 75 to shoot 1-under 71 today and moved up into a T65. Podolak, an insurance agent from Oxbow, N.D., is the winningest amateur in that state and also won the 1984 United States Mid-Amateur. He gave up a year of amateur eligibility after qualifying for this event by shooting 1-under 71 on the Old Course at Broken Sound in December, 2009. Podolak sells Allianz products through his insurance firm, Podolak & Associates.