KAPALUA, Maui — On a Maui day so idyllic the second round of the Mercedes-Benz Championship looked as if an entire golf tour should be posing for a picture, Geoff Ogilvy plowed through the front of Kapalua's Plantation Course and coasted through the back to hold onto his lead going into today's third round.

Ogilvy, the 2006 U.S. Open champion, shot a 5-under-par 68 yesterday and is 11-under halfway through the PGA Tour season opener. The Australian is one up on D.J. Trahan, whose 66 is the low round of the week. Ernie Els (69), who has four top-three finishes here including a victory in 2003, is two back.

Els agonized through a roller-coaster round that saw him miss three putts inside 4 feet, but also bounce back from all three of his bogeys with birdies on the next hole.

"If I made some putts I could have had a low one, said Els, who has 16 tour wins and 44 more around the world. "And I knew today was the day to get a low one."

Meanwhile, the only hint that Ogilvy might be human — in golf terms two days into the season — came on the 17th hole yesterday when he bogeyed for the first time in 2009. He three-putted that hole and the last, both from inside 6 feet, for bogey and par.

"I'm pretty annoyed at the way I finished," Ogilvy said, "but I'm happy with where I am and how I'm playing."

Those are his only glitches in two days across the broad fairways, massive greens and drop-dead views of the Plantation. While weird and not-so-wonderful weather is expected tomorrow, conditions were spectacular yesterday. It was 80 degrees, with just a whisper of a tradewind and, for the final group only, an early warning of what might be to come.

Winds are expected to shift today with hazy conditions and become full-on Kona — from the South — tomorrow, with rain and even thunderstorms predicted. That could make the weekend extremely interesting.

"The wind is off the left on the 18 now, and I've never played the 18th off the left," said Ogilvy, whose best score in his first two appearances here was 72. "I've never seen Kona wind here.

"I'm sure a lot of guys have seen it. A lot of guys have been playing this course for a long time. I've never played it like this. I'm sure it will be a bit awkward. Your instinct is every time you go that way you go downwind, and every time you go that way, you go into the wind. That's pretty much the instinct here. If it goes the other way, you have to re-think."

Such a dramatic change might bode well for those with Kapalua history on their side, such as Els and Davis Love III, who played the final five holes in 5-under yesterday to shoot 70 and surge into a fourth-place tie with Anthony Kim, Sean O'Hair, Ryuji Imada, Kenny Perry and Johnson Wagner.

"I have a lot of good memories here," said Love, who has played Kapalua since 1986 and won here twice. "I think that gets me around the golf course a little bit, too. Guys come over and they don't quite get it. I think it's a little bit of an advantage, a couple shots, playing in so many different conditions. Especially if it turns around and blows the other way. A lot of people have never seen it."

Ogilvy birdied five of the last six holes on the front nine but played the back in even-par. He has hit all but three greens in regulation the first two days, along with Trahan, who eagled the 15th yesterday with a 37-foot putt to close in.

Trahan, who won the Bob Hope Chrysler Classic last year and finished 26th on the money list, took the longest break of his career — nearly 3 1/2 months — leading into Mercedes. He spent most of it hunting and was successful enough that he is now giving away 350 pounds of processed moose meat and looking for a place to put his mounted moose head.

He is not sure if anyone can cope with Kapalua if the weather gets funky.

"I don't know if this course fits anybody's game," said Trahan, who couldn't break 75 in his first appearance on Maui. "I think you just have to take this course for what it is because we don't see anything remotely close to this throughout the year. It's just there's so much up an down and so many sidehill lies. The greens are wild and crazy."

Trahan played with Boo Weekly, now infamous for galloping off the first tee at the Ryder Cup riding his driver. Weekly pulled into third with birdie on the 15th, but four-putted from 18 feet to double-bogey the final hole, missing the last from 15 inches. He is tied for 10th with Adam Scott, five shots back.

Stewart Cink is another shot back despite two eagles yesterday, including a hole-out from 81 yards on the 14th.

NOTES

Punahou graduate Parker McLachlin is the new Community Ambassador for the Friends Club, of Friends of Hawai'i Charities. McLachlin will help raise awareness of the group's efforts to help those in need in Hawai'i. McLachlin and the Friends Club hope to increase the club's membership as well as increase the charity dollars going to Friends of Hawai'i Charities, the driving force behind the Sony Open.

McLachlin, who rallied to shoot a 69, and Justin Leonard were the only golfers with bogey-free rounds yesterday. Leonard shot 67.

Kapalua Plantation's huge greens helped the course earn the highest putts-per-round average in 2008 — 31.19. Torrey Pines was next at 30.55, then Oakland Hills, where the PGA Championship was played, at 30.65. The course was also the tour's fourth-easiest for driving accuracy in 2007, with golfers hitting the fairway more than 76 percent of the time.