Be a monster.

On the PGA Tour, J.B. Holmes is the guy some deranged doctor built in a laboratory. Check for bolts under the collar of his polo shirt.

He wears a black glove on his left hand. Is it bionic?

The compact and muscular Kentuckian hits the golf ball ridiculously hard and far. He's averaging 311 yards on the PGA Tour this year.

Associated Press Muscular J.B. Holmes, who is averaging 311 yards on the PGA Tour this year, hits a drive on the 18th hole as he tames the South Course at Oakland Hills.

It doesn't always go straight, which can be a problem, but he's managing to keep it mostly in the narrow fairways this week in the 90th PGA Championship, and his bombs from the tee are mashing Ben Hogan's “Monster.”

Holmes launched a couple of drives close to 400 yards yesterday, needed only a wedge – a wedge! – on his second shot into the par-5 second hole, and shot a 2-under-par 68 to take the lead at 1-under 139 through two rounds of what is shaping up to be the toughest PGA ever played.

“I really felt like I almost shot the highest score I could have shot today. I hit the ball real well,” said Holmes, a two-time PGA Tour winner who is playing in only his second PGA.

Most of the other players were scoring higher than they thought they would. The scoring average for the second round at Oakland Hills was 74.83, the highest in relation to par on any PGA Tour course this year.

Since the PGA Championship went to stroke play in 1958, only four winners have shot 1-over. Nothing higher. They could smash that record come tomorrow. It usually gets tougher on the weekend at majors, and there are only three players at even par – Ben Curtis and Justin Rose, who scored stellar 67s, and Charlie Wi (70).

Eight-over was the cut, and 73 players made it.

Someone wondered aloud to Sergio Garcia, who is 2-over, about how the absent Tiger Woods might be faring.

“With all due respect,” Garcia answered, “I'd like to see him play the course the way it is. He would be struggling.”

Not since John Daly's shocking win in the 1991 PGA has a bomber overpowered a major, but Holmes is threatening to make it happen. His highlights yesterday:

His drive at the 529-yard second traveled 381 yards, and he needed only a wedge to set up a 12-foot birdie.

The sixth was fashioned by the PGA to be drivable at 300 yards, and Holmes hit the green and two-putted for birdie.

Holmes walloped a 376-yard drive at the par-5 12th, and from 217 yards used an 8-iron – yes, 8-iron! – to get on the green for birdie.

At the 488-yard 14th, he smoked a 401-yard drive and left himself a wedge, and converted a 25-foot attempt for his third straight birdie.

Can he keep this up without finding disaster?

“Depends on how you hit it,” Holmes said with a smile. “If I'm hitting bad shots with it, you don't hit is as much. (But if) every time you hit it, you hit it right where you've looked, whale away.”

Tod Leonard: (619) 293-1858; tod.leonard@uniontrib.com