By Melanie Hauser, PGATOUR.COM HUMBLE, Texas – It’s been a long few months for Brian Davis. Lots of changes, lots of adjusting. The hardest/toughest one? Brian Davis lost his father to cancer. “It was obviously a tough time for me and time to maybe reassess my life and look at what I'm doing, which I did, and it's been a positive,’’ Davis said. “... I was very close to my parents. I just had to search for, you know, finding a way. No one can explain what it's like. It's one of those things you have to go through and, you know, took me awhile to sort of get through that and, you know, get myself ready to play.’’ Davis also changed his caddie and his sports psychologist and went to work on his swing and getting it back to where he wanted it to be. “(I wanted to)  improve it as well but get rid of the faults I had.’’ And he had to figure out better time management. It didn’t show at the first of the season, but now? Seems like he’s ready to take off. He got into last week’s Arnold Palmer Invitational on an exemption and – bam – finished tied for fourth. And this week? He backed up an opening 68 with a 65 to share the early-evening, incomplete second round lead at the Shell Houston Open with Louis Oosthuizen. “It was a good day at the office today,’’ said Davis, whose best finish at the SHO was a T-7 in 2005. “It was tougher this morning because we didn't have ball in hand to start the round and we had the rain yesterday. “This morning was pretty tough. The ball was flying everywhere. Got the ball in hand this afternoon, you know, got a flag to go at.’’ Davis, who has never won on the TOUR, but has finished second five times, said the key was the changes in the offseason. “Took a whole look, you know, everything basically,’’ he said. “Spent a lot of time in the winter with Bob Winters and, you know, just felt really good coming out to start the season and I played awful. So it was quite hard to take me. You go backwards, it seems like.  But, it's one of them things you got to stay the course and keep at it.’’ Friday, Davis played 32 holes because of Thursday’s rain suspension. He was on the board after cleaning up his opening 68, but in the afternoon, he took off. Davis shot 2-under on the back nine – his first nine – then birdied the first and second holes to get to 9-under for the tournament. “This morning was a lot tougher, every fairway I had a mud ball, so the balls were going haywire and a lot tougher,’’ he said. “This afternoon you could be more aggressive, and obviously hitting fairways, I was able to clean the ball and play aggressive shots.’’