Jamieson and Gallacher secure spots at Doral

SCOTT Jamieson and Stephen Gallacher have both earned places in next week’s WGC-Cadillac Championship on the back of their flying starts to the 2013 campaign.

The Scottish duo have qualified for the £5.6 million event in Florida as a result of being in the top ten in this year’s Race to Dubai at the first of two cut-off points yesterday.

Jamieson, who recorded his breakthrough European Tour victory in the Nelson Mandela Championship in Durban before finishing third and second in his next two events, lies second behind Richard Sterne while Gallacher, winner of the Dubai Desert Classic earlier this month, is ninth.

It will be the second WGC event in succession that Scotland has provided three players in the elite field after Gallacher, Paul Lawrie and Richie Ramsay played in last week’s Accenture Match Play Championship in Arizona. They all made first-round exits but have not suffered much damage in the world rankings as a consequence. Lawrie is down one spot to 33rd, Gallacher has dropped four places to 60th while Ramsay is still 63rd.

Even though he has not played for the last fortnight, Jamieson has jumped three spots to 70th, but Martin Laird, the top-ranked Scottish player just over a year ago, is getting dangerously close to dropping out of the top 100 after slipping to 94th.

American Matt Kuchar improved from 23rd to eighth with his victory over Hunter Mahan, last year’s winner, in Arizona. Losing semi-finalist Ian Poulter is up from 13th to tenth with Rory McIlroy still out in front despite his early defeat last week.