Alan Hansen's Dunhill blog: Day Three

Published on Friday 8 October 2010 17:42

Match of the Day pundit and ex-Liverpool legend Alan Hansen is blogging exclusively for scotsman.com from this year's Dunhill Links championship...

It was a hard day. It's the coldest I've ever been in my life. Every shot was difficult – not just for the amateurs but also for the professionals. Ritchie (Ramsay, my playing partner) had two or three bits of really bad luck at the wrong time. I think that Kingsbarns is as challenging a course as anywhere because of the size of the greens and this was accentuated by the wind today.

So we battled through the wind and cold. At times it looked like it was midnight out there but we survived at all and lived to tell the tale. Ritchie and I finished three under which is great and it keep us in the hunt tomorrow at St Andrews, which is usually the easiest of the three Dunhill courses to score on. So we still may qualify for the final on Sunday.

The 12th is one of the toughest holes on the course. I started well with a decent drive and 6 iron shot but ended up making a six! Hole four was also a monster and the par four seventh felt like a par five. Just to make matters worse, every hole into the wind on the front nine was right at the back of the greens.

The highlight of the day was probably my birdie on the 11th where I had a play 470 yards into the wind. I hit two great shots and then holed the putt so at least I can take some positives out of today.

Johann Cruyff was in our group today – he and I were saying how impressed we were with the quality of the pros. Some of the chipping today was outstanding from both our playing partners. The standard between amateurs like myself and the pros in this event is like night and day but when you get conditions like this, even for those guys, it is just plain tough.

The team score is currently 8 under so we're certainly still in the hunt so I'm looking forward to better fortunes tomorrow. I've always liked the Old Course and I tend to play well there. Hopefully we'll also get better weather as well.