ST. AUGUSTINE, Fla. — The course record was tied again — twice — and red continued to be the primary color for the Korn Ferry Tour’s King & Bear Classic in Thursday’s second round.

With more mild weather forecast for the final two days, there appears to be nothing stopping the field from continuing its assault on the course that was co-designed by Arnold Palmer and Jack Nicklaus, but is taking a beating the two charter members of the World Golf Hall of Fame likely never envisioned.

And for all of the low scores and sensational shots, the top of the leaderboard remained the same as at the end of the first round: Vince India (66), a University of Iowa graduate, and Australian Brett Coletta (66) are tied at 15-under-par 129.

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Dawson Armstrong, noted for having won 13 ASUN Player of the Week awards when at Lipscomb University — a record in that conference for any sport — threatened both the leaders, the course record and the magic number of 59 while playing in the final group.

Armstrong overcame an opening bogey with back-to-back eagles at Nos. 4 and 5, and was 10 under during a 10-hole stretch to get within one shot of the lead through 13 holes.

He bogeyed No. 17, then two-putted the par-5 18th for birdie and a 63 to tie India, Coletta and Wes Roach for the course records they set or tied so far this week.

Armstrong muscled his way into a tie for third with Mickey DeMorat (64), who hails from nearby Melbourne, and Justin Lower (65), who birdied three of his last five holes.

Armstrong said he wasn’t thinking 59 or course records.

“I was thinking (make the) cut,” he said. “We weren’t worried about scoring, just hitting good shots.”

And how good were these shots?

After a booming drive at the short par-4 fourth hole, Armstrong had only a wedge from 57 yards to the green, and he knocked it in the hole.

On the par-5 fifth hole, he took an unconventional line off the tee over the sixth green, with the ball curving left onto the fairway. He had 135 yards in and wedged to within 12 feet. He made the putt and then birdied six of his next eight holes.

“It was really, really fun,” he said of his second round this year with back-to-back eagles (he did it at the Bogota Championship).

India made his only bogey of the tournament so far at No. 9 — his finishing hole — and had two streaks of three birdies within four holes in each side. He has missed only two fairways this week.

After playing the first 11 holes at 1 under, Coletta caught fire on the back nine with five birdies among his last seven holes, four of them on putts of eight feet or shorter.

The two shared the lowest 36-hole scores in relation to par on the Korn Ferry Tour this season, and matched the 129s (12-under) Camilo Villegas and John VanderLaan shot at the Country Club of Bogota Championship in January.

The group at 13-under was led by Roach, who has conditional PGA Tour status and played five full seasons on the Korn Ferry Tour. He birdied Nos. 17 and 18 for a 63 and his slice of the course record.

Also at 13 under are four-time PGA Tour winner Chris Kirk (65), who is making his first start on the Korn Ferry Tour since 2010 when he won twice and finished second on the money list; Will Zalatoris (66), the 54-hole leader last week at the Korn Ferry Challenge at TPC Sawgrass; and Callum Tarren (65), a native of England who landed at Virginia’s Radford University.

Davis Riley (66) second on the 2020 Korn Ferry money list, leads five players at 12-under.

The field broke 70 for the second day in a row with an average of 69.222. The 6. under cut was the lowest of the season on the Korn Ferry Tour and was the 16th time in its 26-year history that the cut was 6- or 7-under.

The wide fairways and large greens were stress-free targets.

“It was fun out there again today,” said India, who tied for 10th last week in the Korn Ferry Challenge at TPC Sawgrass and has shot 70 or lower his last seven rounds. “It will probably come down to a putting contest on the weekend. The greens are rolling really well and they’re fairly easy to read. You’re going to have a lot of opportunities with the widths of the fairways and how many short irons you’re going to have. So it will be a shootout.”

India was able to shrug off his closing bogey, a three-putt from 40 feet.

“It’s always really hard to follow up a good round with another one,” he said.

“I think it was just a little impatience got in the way,” Coletta said of a slow start that included his only bogey of the tournament so far, after he drove into a divot at No. 8. “I wasn’t mad about the front nine at all. It was definitely a little more windy out there and definitely hot out there.”

Roach said there’s no reason for a player to take his foot off the gas as the winning score is tracking towards the 23 under Andrew Novak shot in February at the LECOM Suncoast Classic near Sarasota that is the lowest winning score of the season.

“You’ve got to be pretty aggressive,” he said. “The landing areas in the fairways are pretty generous. You hit your driver hard, keep it in play and make a bunch of putts. With four reachable par-5s and a lot of wedges in your hands on some par fours you’re going to make a lot of birdies.”

DeMorat said there was such a thing as being too risky and players could simply let the birdies come to them.

“I tried to keep the ball in play and have a lot of birdie opportunities,” he said. “It’s mostly staying patient and trying to eliminate the mistakes more than anything. You’re going to have a lot of birdie opportunities but you can be too aggressive. I’m going play it safe when I need to and take advantage of the par-5s.”

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