AUGUSTA, Ga. (AP) -- Phil Mickelson and South African Manny Zerman are in another battle for an important amateur accomplishment.

Mickelson, who attends Arizona State, beat Zerman, who attends Arizona, to win the U.S. Amateur crown last year.

They are tied for low amateur halfway through the Masters.

Zerman shot 71 and Mickelson 73 in the second round, leaving each with 2-under-par 142 scores.

Three other amateurs didn't survive the cut.

Jim Stuart, the U.S. Mid-Amateur champion, improved his score by nine shots yesterday, but the 72 still left him at 153.

Michael Combs, the U.S. Public Links winner, shot 74, and the Netherlands' Rolf Muntz, the British Amateur champion, shot 75, leaving both with 155 totals.

* Billy Ray Brown, the fourth-year pro who tied for third in last year's U.S. Open, said he was really nervous during the second round, when he shot a 65.

He said it aided him to be playing with a friend, Mark O'Meara, who helped calm him down by talking about cars and fishing.

* "I don't like missing the cut every year, but that seems to be the pattern these days," Arnold Palmer said after failing to qualify for the final two rounds of the Masters for the eighth year in a row.

"I thought maybe I'd do it this year, but the putting was horrendous," he said.

Palmer, 61, a four-time Masters champion, had rounds of 78 and 77 for 155.