Mize and Couples Lead at PGA Championship : Golf: Pair tied at 140 with 2nd round still under way. Bobby Wadkins shoots 75 to fall 3 shots behind.

Larry Mize and Fred Couples put together a string of birdies at the end of their rounds to share the early lead here today in the second round of the PGA Championship.

Mize, whose four-under-par 68 was the best score of the day, and Couples, who carded a 71, each had a total of 140, four under par for 36 holes over the very demanding 7,145-yard Shoal Creek golf course.

They held a three-stroke lead over first-round leader Bobby Wadkins and Fuzzy Zoeller.

Wadkins, who opened the tournament with a 68, struggled to a three-over 75 while Zoeller matched the 71 posted by Couples.

Both Mize and Couples finished strong on a warm, sunny day without the hint of wind. Mize birdied three of the last four holes and Couples birdied four of the last six.

“I’ve been driving the ball pretty good these days,” Mize said when asked for an explanation of how he mastered a course that was proving too much for many other players.

Mize did what everyone was trying to do. He kept his ball out of the deep rough that has tormented the field of 151 professional golfers, including the best in the world.

The native of Augusta, Ga., home of the Masters, made seven birdies that were partially offset by three bogeys, two of which were the direct result of the unforgiving rough.

Couples was also victimized by the long Bermuda grass lining the narrow fairways. He bogeyed the 11th and double-bogeyed the 12th hole, where he got caught in the deep stuff twice.

But Couples came alive with four birdies in the next five holes to move to four under. Mize later caught him with his 68.

The next best round of the day was a 69 posted by Greg Norman, who moved to within six shots of the lead after staggering to a 77 in the first round.

John Huston and Davis Love both matched par for the second straight day and were four strokes behind the leaders and one behind Wadkins and Zoeller.

Zoeller, a former Masters and U.S. Open champion, joined the chorus of criticism of the 13-year-old golf course, which was designed by Jack Nicklaus but prepared at the direction of the PGA of America.

The course, which was a pushover for the 1984 PGA Championship, is lined with rough so long and tangled that players were forced to use sand wedges just to get their ball back on the fairway.

“This is the hardest damned golf course I’ve ever played in my life,” said Zoeller, who won the 1984 U.S. Open at the notorious Winged Foot Golf Club in New York.

“We’re having such a damned hard time trying to keep the ball in the fairway that we don’t care what we shoot,” Zoeller said.

“It would be nice to have some chance--80 percent, or 20 percent,” Wadkins said. “But here if you hit in the rough you don’t have any chance.”