CASTLE ROCK, Colo. -- It doesn’t take much to be inspired at The INTERNATIONAL.

If the beauty of Castle Pines Golf Club, located at 6,300 feet in the Rocky Mountain foothills, doesn’t lift your spirits; if the legendary milkshakes don’t soothe you; if the Modified Stableford scoring system doesn’t make the game fun, well, maybe your playing partners will.

Patrick Sheehan and Ian Leggatt, a pair of ex-hockey players from Rhode Island and Canada, respectively, and Chris Riley inspired one another with their play on Friday morning in the weather-delayed second round.

Sheehan, who celebrated his 37th birthday here Wednesday, recorded 8 points to take the 36-hole lead at 18, one more than the 40-year-old Leggatt, who scored 13 points — the day’s best score — thanks to a pair of eagles.

Riley, a member of the 2004 U.S. Ryder Cup team, scored 6 points for the second straight day.

In case you’re counting, that’s 47 points by the trio after two trips around the par-72, 7,619-yard Castle Pines, which has never looked better nor played tougher.

“It was a good group for me because everybody talks to each other and you’re telling jokes,” said Sheehan, who has $263,058 in earnings, 158th on the PGA TOUR list. “A guy makes a couple birdies and you just try to follow him.”

Though it wasn’t quite like the great duel of Tom Watson and Jack Nicklaus in the 1977 British Open at Turnberry (tied for the 36-hole lead, Watson shot 65-65 and Nicklaus 65-66), Sheehan, Leggatt and Riley fed off one another with their birdies and eagles.

“We were all playing pretty well,” said Leggatt, whose career has been in a tailspin since 2003 because of injuries, including surgery for carpal tunnel syndrome in his left wrist. “It’s different if one guy is struggling with his game — you know, just chopping it around. All three of us were hitting it quite nicely. It just so happened Patrick and I did fairly well on the back nine starting out.”

Actually, Leggatt’s day started with a disaster — a double bogey on the 485-yard 10th hole, one of the hardest on the PGA TOUR. “Definitely a bad start,” admitted Leggatt, who has earned just $89,866(211th on the money list in 19 events.

Riley, who has earned $237,836 in 17 events to rank 163rd in earnings, bogeyed the 10th and 16th holes, while Sheehan started with a birdie at No.10 and answered a bogey at No. 16 with a birdie on the 492-yard, par-5 17th.

“The way this format goes, you just never know what could happen out there,” said Leggatt, who totaled 14 points on Castle Pines’ four par-5s — Nos. 1, 8, 14 and 17. He began his comeback with a birdie at the 623-yard 14th hole, birdied the 209-yard 16th and then knocked a 7-iron to 20 feet for his first eagle putt at 17.

Leggatt birdied the first and then knocked a 6-iron on the 570-yard eighth hole from 220 yards to 25 feet and made the putt.

Riley overcame his two bogeys with four birdies at Nos. 2, 4, 6 and 7 coming inward. After a bogey on the second hole, Sheehan finished with birdies at Nos. 7, 8 and 9.

“I made a bomb today (a 30-footer at No. 10) and then made a lot of pars,” Sheehan said. “The last three holes I just hit it close enough and made the putts.”

The longest of his three birdie putts was his last stroke of the day, a 10-footer into the hole at No. 9.

“This is a hard course,” Sheehan admitted. “I usually don’t go around the golf course with few mistakes.”

Patrick Sheehan and his caddie during the second round where Sheehan captured the lead (WireImage)

Sheehan’s career has slipped since he earned more than $1.2 million in 2004. This year, he’s played in 23 events, missing the cut 12 times and having just one top 10 -- a tie for seventh at the John Deere Classic.

“I just haven’t been able to put four good rounds together,” Sheehan said. “I’ve had a lot of tournaments where I’ve had two good rounds and two just kind of iffy rounds. It basically comes down to putting. The first couple of years, I was ranked in the top 30 or 40. In the last year and a half, I’ve been in the 130 range. It’s a fine line between making a million bucks and making $300,000, and usually that’s putting.”

There’s a fine line, too, when a player should play or not play after major injuries. Leggatt crossed it twice and paid dearly, requiring surgery in January of 2005 on a tear in his hand.

“The biggest problem I’ve had is just the mental part of leaving the game when I left it,” said Leggatt, who won just over $1.2 million in a 2002 season that included a victory at Touchstone Energy Tucson Open. “I was playing so well, I was moving in the right direction, so that was very difficult to sort of be pushed out of the game.”

Now, Ian Leggatt is pushing hard to get his game back and inspiring others like Patrick Sheehan to do the same.