What a difference a day makes eh? The conditions at Royal Troon had undergone so many changes it was if Theresa May had taken over at the Met Office. The sun, which had made a prolonged guest appearance during Thursday’s first round, was unplugged and dunted out of the picture quicker than George Osborne, the rain came hurtling down, the wind whipped up and the laden sky looked so sodden you almost expected the clouds to start growing moss. They really should play the Open in the summer.

Forget cabinet reshuffles, there were some serious meteorological manoeuvrings in Ayrshire. There were to-ings and fro-ings on the leaderboard as well on day two of the 145th championship but Phil Mickelson is still perched on the top with a 10-under 132, beating the Troon halfway record by a shot. He’s not ahead by much, though.

Henrik Stenson is right in there after a super 65 which left him one off the pace on 133 while Soren Kjeldsen and Keegan Bradley tucked themselves into the leading pack with spirited 68s to sit two further back. That quartet were all among the morning starters and they certainly got lucky with the draw as Mother Nature wreaked a terrible vengeance on everybody who had the temerity to bask in Thursday’s sunshine. As the day wore on, there were quite ghastly scenes on the links and at times the Open looked more like a medal being played amid a nuclear winter. Louis Oosthuizen, the champion in 2010, was ravaged on a back nine of 45 which included a nine in a ruinous 83. His hole in one on Thursday seemed a long time ago.

Mickelson’s shimmering 63 in the first round was always going to be a tough act to follow. Of the seven 63s posted on the opening day of any major, only two players – Jack Nicklaus in the 1980 US Open and Ray Floyd in the 1982 US PGA Championship – have gone on to win. The 46-year-old continued to make a fine fist of his own quest and for a good couple of hours in the morning his procession rumbled along nicely. It was flinging it down at that stage but the wind was modest. At one point Mickelson had increased his lead to five shots after a first class delivery into the Postage Stamp eighth which dribbled to within an inch of a hole-in-one. He finally stumbled to his first bogey of the day at the 12th, but after a birdie, bogey exchange at 14 and 15, he saved a crucial shot on the par-3 17th with a superbly executed bunker shot which splashed out to within a couple of feet. “I needed to make par there,” he said after posting back-to-back rounds in the 60s for only the third time in 23 Opens. All of them have been at Troon.

It was a marauding Mickelson who ended Stenson’s Open ambitions at Muirfield in 2013 as he romped home with four birdies on the last six holes to win by three. There could be another shoot-out here in the west as the Swede upped the ante with a rousing 65 which was aided by four birdies in five holes from the third and a further trio of gains in the inward half. Stenson, 40, has not been in the major hunt since he finished third in the 2015 PGA Championship but he’s got the sniff again. “It’s time to get going,” he said. “I’m 40, I’m not going to play these tournaments for ever and ever.”

Kjeldsen is 41, measures 5’ 7” and averages just 280 yards off the tee but the popular Dane is a dogged competitor and his win in last year’s Irish Open at County Down in appalling weather underlined his fighting qualities in this type of trying terrain. Raking birdie putts of 30 feet at eight and 40 feet on 17 bolstered his push for a maiden major and a 68 left him handily placed. “Probably people think I’ve over achieved but I’m married to Charlotte and I think I’ve over achieved there as well,” he said with a smile. “We all have limitations. The whole thing is about pushing, trying to see how good you can get.”

Zach Johnson, the defending champion, is hovering about on 137 after a 70 while Charl Schwartzel came barging into the hunt with five birdies on his first seven holes in a 66 for a 138. That was the same tally as the sturdy, bearded Englishman Andrew ‘Beef’ Johnston who led the British challenge after a topsy turvy 69 which included a triple bogey, seven birdies and just 23 putts.

Rory McIlroy, the 2014 Open champion, had a 71 to sit on the two-under mark alongside Dustin Johnson, who finished with a flourish and birdied the last three holes in a fighting 69.

Jason Day, the world No 1 who was out in the worst of it, also had to dig deep and chiselled out a 71 to comfortably make the weekend on 143. It was a tighter affair for Jordan Spieth who flirted with an early exit after a 75. He made it, though. “You wish this was just a round with your buddies where you go into the clubhouse and have one or seven pints afterwards,” he said.

The drookit golf writers nodded in drouthy agreement.