KAPALUA, Maui » Charley Hoffman was sailing down the fairways and greens virtually untouched until being knocked out of bounds by the 17th hole.

Thanks to birdieing seven out of eight, including five in a row, Hoffman was at 11 under for the tournament and atop the leaderboard when the par-4 hole socked the wind out of him.

From the middle of the fairway, his second shot into the green went wide left into the weeds and his eventual putt for bogey came up inches short for a dreaded 6. Hoffman rebounded with a birdie at 18 to finish tied for fifth, just one shot back through 36 holes at the Hyundai Tournament of Champions.

But the damage was done.

"Obviously, just the second round of the year," Hoffman said, pleading his case. "Just trying to get my feet wet. Made a bunch of birdies, hit a lot of good shots and one unfortunate swing. You can get away with a few bad swings out here, but not on the 17th hole."

Hoffman carded nine birdies, the most of anyone in the second round. The blemish came on a 224-yard 6-iron where Hoffman tried to ride the wind.

"Yeah, just tried to play a draw 6-iron, obviously extreme downhill lie and just got over it a little bit," Hoffman said. "I made sure I caught the ball first, pulled it, bad bounce in the hazard and left a 12-footer short in the jaws for double-bogey. Happy with the way I played overall and if I keep doing that, I’m going to be right in contention coming in on Monday."

Hideki in the house

Japan’s Hideki Matsuyama, who will play next week at the Sony Open in Hawaii, made his presence felt with a blistering 7-under 66 to move within one shot of the lead.

Beginning the day at 3 under, Matsuyama carded seven birdies to move into contention. He said his short game was sharp and that the best thing about the Plantation Course was the scenery. He’s still trying to figure out the greens.

"The grain, you don’t know if it’s coming in toward you or going away from you," Matsuyama said. "So to judge, that’s probably the hardest. My short iron game was really good."

Like most of the golfers coming here, Matsuyama spent some time off. Shaking off the rust is the hardest part of playing after a long layoff.

"With the holidays, with the break, I took some time off," Matsuyama said. "I came here and my shot was still OK. So this week, just taking it easy and see where I go."

Inside the numbers

With a little bit more wind that came and went from different directions, the scoring average was almost a full stroke higher than Friday’s opening round at 70.353.

The hardest hole was the par-4 14th with an average of 4.235. There were only four birdies, with 23 pars, four bogeys, one double and two triple bogeys by Chris Kirk and Seung-Yul Noh.

The easiest hole for the second straight day was the par-5 fifth with a scoring average of 4.176. There were 30 birdies, two pars and two bogeys. After five eagles in the opening round of the tournament, there were none Saturday.