New Zealand's Michael Campbell continued his recent revival to lead at the halfway stage after the second round of the 2012 UBS Hong Kong Golf Open here on Friday.

The 2005 US Open champion only made four cuts in two years as slid outside the top 1,000 on the official world golf ranking.

Still only 910th four months ago, the 43-year-old is now up to 339th thanks largely to his third-place finish at the recent Protugal Masters.

A joint beast of the week 64, finished in style with an eight foot birdie putt at the last, took Campbell to nine under par and one ahead of two-time winner Miguel Angel Jimenez and China's Zhang Lianwei, aged 48 and 47 respectively, and 40-year-old Swedish Fredrik Anderson Hed on a leaderboard packed with veterans.

"Today was a day where I played great from tee-to-green and holed a few nice putts for pars and birdies," said Campbell. "I'm just happy to be in a position to have a chance for the weekend; that's why we play the game, that's why I didn't give up. That's why I just stuck at it, just stuck working hard on my game, and I knew that this would happen - I deserve it, really."

Five-time Asian Tour winner Zhang Lianwei remained on course for a unique Chinese treble after he carded a four-under-par 66.

World's No.1 Rory McIlroy of Northern Ireland will not be defending his title as he made his early exit after rounds of 73 and 72. Big names like Yang Yong-eun of South Korea and Padraig Harrington of Ireland neither made it to the weekend round as the cut was set at two-over with a total of 73 players making the cut.

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