Sergio Garcia kept his composure despite struggling with his footwear to fire a second round 69 to lie three strokes off the lead at the Volvo Golf Champions event in Bahrain.
Garcia slipped on three separate occasions, including once while playing his second shot into the par four 15th which resulted in the Spaniard taking a double bogey.
Garcia slipped on three separate occasions, including once while playing his second shot into the par four 15th which resulted in the Spaniard taking a double bogey.
"I have soft spikes on my golf shoes and I may have to consider replacing them with metal spikes," Garcia told Reuters.
"The fairways are very green but the funny thing is that I didn't slip at all yesterday but three times today.
"It's just unfortunate because it happened when I was playing my best golf today. I was nine under coming to 15 and the double was a bitter pill.
"But hopefully with a full set of new spikes I won't have the problem tomorrow."
Garcia, 31, who has dropped to 80th in the world having plummeted 60 places in a year -- a drop accelerated by his decision to take an extended break after last year's U.S. PGA Championship -- was delighted to be in contention in his first event of the year.
Garcia is just three strokes behind the leading foursome of Spain's Miguel Angel Jimenez, Sweden's Peter Hanson, Frenchman Raphael Jacquelin and Italy's Edoardo Molinari.
"It's nice to come out in your first event of a new year and be in contention," he said.
"I had seven birdies today including two to finish which was good because I dropped three shots in two holes at 15 and 16.
"But the good thing is that I came back nicely with birdies at the last two holes.
"Overall there is a lot of good things in my game and also some not so good things."
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