Favourite Retief Goosen and defending champion Robert Karlsson, the top two players in the Wales Open at Celtic Manor, both went crashing out at the halfway point last night.

Two weeks before he tries for a third US Open victory in seven years Goosen, the only member of the world's top-25 taking part in the event, slumped to a second-round 73 on the par-69 lay-out.

It completes a miserable two weeks for the South African star before he heads across the Atlantic for the second major of the year. He also made an early exit from the BMW PGA Championship last weekend.

Joining them in heading home early is Hartlepool's Graeme Storm. His one-over-par 70 yesterday left him 82nd on the leaderboard, two shots adrift of the cut-off point.

''It's disappointing, that's for sure,'' said Goosen.

''I'm working on a few things, but they're not coming together yet.

''I'll hang around for a couple of days and do some practice, then I'm playing in Memphis next week, so I hope I can find something there. I struggled on the greens here - they were extremely slow.''

Playing partner Karlsson, another who is Oakmont-bound, had a 69, but a two-over total, three better than Goosen, was still not good enough on the same course where he set European Tour records for 36 and 54 holes last June by opening 61-63-65.

Their departures left Colin Montgomerie as the highest-ranked player still standing in the tournament, but he was unhappy after a 64, his lowest round for exactly a year.

The eight-time European number one moved up into the top 25 from 81st at the start of the day, yet he was positively disgusted not to be closer to the surprise leader, Dane Mads Vibe-Hastrup.

''I got half of my game back together but the other half is terrible,'' said Montgomerie, who will be making his 64th attempt to win a major on the course where he lost a play-off to Ernie Els in 1994.

''My putting is the weakest part of anyone's game out here. That could have been anything.''

And this a day after he summed up his opening 70 in five words - ''miss, miss, miss, miss, miss''.

As it was he improved from one over par to four under, which leaves him four strokes to make up on 28-year-old Vibe-Hastrup, who is trying to emulate compatriot Anders Hansen's success at Wentworth last weekend.

The big difference between the two is that Hansen had won the European Tour's flagship event before, whereas Vibe-Hastrup does not have even a top-three finish to show for 122 starts on the circuit.

Ranked a lowly 442nd in the world and 149th on this season's Order of Merit, the Challenge Tour graduate achieved a career-best 63, thanks in part to a spectacular eagle on the long 16th, where his three-wood approach rolled to within a foot of the flag.

That was the high point. The low point quickly followed when his bag fell over on the 17th fairway, damaging his driver.

''I think one of the screws got loose,'' he said. ''When I went to tee off on the last I could hear it rattling.''