Like a man bounding along a high wire with gay abandon, Padraig Harrington continues to astound in the FedExCup play-offs. 

Occasionally he does the splits and appears certain to hurtle to the ground only to grab on by his toenails and rectify the situation with a triple somersault.

For two days in the BMW Championship at Cog Hill he has produced a mesmerising display of golf - mostly from the rough. The short game is now at a level that goes beyond the Gofl Channel to the territory usually reserved for Ripley's Believe it or Not.

Hitting just 11 of 28 fairways, he fired a second successive 68 to remain in contention for his first tour win of the season, just a stroke behind leaders Tiger Woods and Mark Wilson on 6-under par.

Tied for the lead on 7-under playing the 381-yard 18th, Harrington was the only player in the field who had yet to make a bogey in two days.

His drive sailed so far right it bounded out of bounds, yet he still managed to limit the damage to a bogey five by uncorking a 347-yard tee shot straight down the middle which he followed with a wedge to 18 feet and, inevitably, one putt.

The Dubliner has virtually scrambled 100 percent of the time for six consecutive rounds now and he's 37 under par for the 18 rounds  he has played since the Open. That includes a 78 in the final round of the US PGA at Hazeltine (where he had an eight on a par three). 

Asked where the bad drives are coming from, Harrington brought up an old favourite about driving ranges that only accentuates his quirkiness. The range last week was crooked and it messed me up folks.

"I really lost my confidence on the range, whatever way the angle of the range was, and was on the golf course and was kind of a little bit iffy.....I'm either bombing it down the middle or hitting it wide. It's all there. It's just a question of trusting it a little bit more.

"I'm very peculiar when it comes to driving ranges. The first thing I do when I get to a golf course is decide where I'm going to practice for the week. The angle of the range can determine how I swing the golf club. I went to the French Open swinging the club well at home on the Monday, flew in, and on the Tuesday I hit the golf ball the worst I've ever hit it in my life on the range."

He said something similar about Oakmont, when he missed the cut there in the 2007 US Open.

If the tournament were to end now, Harrington would move from seventh to fifth in the FedExCup rankings ahead of the Tour Championship. 

Anyone in the top-five going to East Lake in Atlanta is mathematically certain to win the $10m bonus if he can win the season-ending Tour Championship. Harrington would happily settle for two wins.

After more than 40 days in the US, he's also keen to get home for a rest next week before returning for the final play-off event. 

Many of the players in the field are running on empty and Harrington would not be averse to playing two play-off events and then taking two weeks off before attacking the next two.

"Somebody suggested a two-and-two format. I don't see -- it probably wouldn't do it any harm, no. Yeah, I think having been in contention the last couple weeks, this week I'm glad I'm in contention again, because I do need the adrenaline to keep going. There's no doubt about it. If I was slightly off the lead this week, I could go downhill very quickly."