Rory McIlroy narrowly avoided being drawn with Patrick Reed and headed straight for the range to iron out the kinks in his long game after a second-round 70 left him two shots off the pace in the Hero Dubai Desert Classic.
The Holywood star is tied for seventh with Reed on eight-under-par but he avoided an on course clash with the man who labelled him "an immature child" for blanking him on the range earlier this week.
LIV Golf's Richard Bland and Belgian Thomas Pieters shot 67s for the second day running to share the lead on 10-under-par with American world amateur number two Michael Thorbjornsen (21), who carded a brilliant 64.
The leaders are a shot ahead of Spain's Adri Arnaus, Sweden's Marcus Kinhult and Scotland's Connor Syme with McIlroy and Reed in a seven-man group alongside Ian Poulter, Bernd Wiesberger, Matt Wallace, Angel Hidalgo, Lucas Herbert and rookie Dan Bradbury, who shot a sensational 63.
McIlroy felt he was lucky to shoot 66 in round one and his rustiness showed in round two as he hit just two fairways.
"More of the same, really," said the world number one, who birdied the par-five second and strung together eight pars before being forced to take a drop after pulling his tee shot into a bush at the 10th, leading to a bogey six.
"I think I only hit two fairways today. So once you - when you can't hit fairways around here, and the rough is quite thick, it's very hard to have any control of your ball and get it close into par 4s. Yeah, just a little rusty. Yeah, need to go do a little work."
He got back into the thick of the action with an eagle three from 33 feet at the 13th but lipped out for a birdie at the 15th and had to make an 11-footer for par at the 16th before missing a brace of 15-footers for birdies on the last two greens.
"I chipped and putted it well, and I sort of, you know, got myself around the golf course okay," added McIlroy, who will go out with Wiesberger and Bradbury in tomorrow's third round as Reed plays in the group ahead with Wallace and Julien Brun.
"Being able to post a couple of decent scores and at least have a chance going into the last two days. But definitely more negatives than positives and need to go and figure it out on the range."
The tournament is set for a Monday finish after eight hours of play were lost due to heavy rain on Thursday and Friday and McIlroy has no complaints.
"I'm glad that they went to a Monday," said the Co Down man, who could lose his world number one ranking to Jon Rahm should the Spaniard win the Farmers Insurance this weekend and his third successive event.
"It's good that all the field get an opportunity to play 72 holes. I think it's a good thing. It's such a big event. I think now the discrepancy between these big events on tour and then the lesser ones, that fourth day could mean a lot to someone in terms of changing the course of their year or the course of their career.
"Obviously we are happy playing 72, and it's not as if people have to go that far. Most of the guys are going to Ras Al-Khaimah, a few guys are going to Saudi, so we're not having to go anywhere else.
"Everyone can sort of still get to their destinations on Monday night. Thankfully for me, there's two more rounds."
Shane Lowry went from the fringes of contention to missing the cut when he ran up a quadruple bogey seven at the par-three seventh, his 16th.
Despite not putting his best, the Clara man mixed birdies at the 10th, 14th and 17th with a lone bogey at the 12th to get to four-under.
But three putts from 75 feet at the fifth left him near the cut line before disaster struck at the water-protected 186-yard par three.
Tom McKibbin shot a 71 to finish alongside Lowry, while Pádraig Harrington produced a sensational comeback from his opening 81, improving by 16 strokes as he made eight birdies in a seven-under 65 to finish on two-over.
