Padraig Harrington surges into major contention at Senior PGA Championship
Starting on the back nine, the Dubliner (53) birdied the 14th and 16th to get to three under.
But after getting distracted thinking about how he was swinging well and hitting fairways and greens, he bogeyed the 18th and first and immediately switched to scoring mode.
Three birdies in his last eight holes helped him card a three-under 69 and leap to tied fourth on four-under, just two shots behind leaders Vijay Singh, Cameron Percy and YE Yang.
'I played quite well for the first 26 holes, then made a couple of bogeys around the turn,' Harrington said after Darren Clarke shot 70 to share 11th on three under.
'After that, I got a lot better into what I was doing and played a lot more getting the job done and not really worrying about swinging the club well or playing well.
'It was nice to come home in three under par from there on in.'
He added: 'I was playing well and hit most fairways and greens, and sometimes you get lost in that.
'When I dropped a shot on 18 and on the first, I'm just knuckling down and really not caring too much about how I'm doing, just get it done. It was definitely a better mindset over the last seven or eight holes.'
As the three-time major winner and former US Senior Open champion headed to his 11th hole, caddie Ronan Flood reminded him that rather than the usual 54-hole sprint, this was a 72-hole marathon.
'Ronan said it to me when we got through the first hole; he said, look, we've only played 28 holes,' Harrington explained.
'There's still a long way to go in this tournament.
'But the problem with the Champions Tour is that this week we have four rounds, which is a huge relief, but the Champions Tour, you've got to be near the lead nearly.
'It's actually starting to show up on the PGA Tour. You've got to be inside the top 10 if you're going to compete in these tournaments.
'Very rarely do you see people coming nowadays from well back. Years ago, it used to happen, but I think they're pretty much showing you want to be in the top 10 nearly after day one, if not after day two, in order to have a chance of winning a tournament.'
That means Seamus Power or Scottie Scheffler will unlikely win the PGA Tour's Charles Schwab Championship in Forth Worth.
Scheffler carded a one-over 71 at Colonial in round two and goes into the weekend ten strokes off the lead in a tie for 49th on one-under.
Ben Griffin and Germany's Matti Schmid fired a seven-under 63s to lead by two shots on 11-under from first-round pacesetter John Pak.
Power shot a bogey-free, three under 67 to get back to level par but only discovered he had made the cut on the mark late in the day.
But there will be no weekend action for Leona Maguire in the Mexico River Maya Open at Mayakoba.
She bogeyed her last two holes to card a second successive 75 and miss the four-over cut by two shots.
The Co Cavan star (29) has fallen from 52nd to 75th in the world this year and now needs to turn things around for next week's US Women's Open at Erin Hills.
Jenny Bae shot a second-round 69 in Playa del Carmen and leads by a shot on six-under at halfway from China's Miranda Wang and American Brianna Do.
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