Lawrie turns on the style to ignite home hopes

Published on Saturday 7 October 2006 01:16

SCOTTISH hopes of retaining the title at the £2.7 million Dunhill Links for a third successive season were sparked at the halfway mark when Paul Lawrie, the winner in 2001, carded 65 at Kingsbarns, Colin Montgomerie, the defending champion, signed for 67 over the Old Course, and Scott Drummond showed his liking for the big stage with a patient 69 at Carnoustie.

As Bradley Dredge, 67 for 131, set the pace for the rest of the field to chase on 12 under par, Lawrie leapt from 65th spot on Thursday to 11th place yesterday thanks to an outstanding round of seven under par, his lowest score since the first tournament of the 2006 season.

The highlight of the Aberdonian's day was a thrilling eagle 3 on the ninth after he rifled a 3-iron to within three feet of the cup. "That was a nice way to finish," he smiled. "I've just been trying to get things a little simpler this week. I've not got to so much going on in my head. I just stood up and hit it today, which was great."

In a sense, Lawrie, on 136, has taken a leaf out of Monty's book. His partner at the Brookline Ryder Cup in 1999 is renowned for treating golf in a straightforward manner.

Lawrie, on the other hand, knows he may have overcomplicated the game for himself. Having played beautifully in practice and struck the ball sweetly on the range for much of the season without seeing the rewards on the course, Lawrie turned things around at Kingsbarns by trusting in a more instinctive approach to the game.

The Scot is a far more gifted player from inside 60 yards today than he was when he won the Open at Carnoustie seven years ago. "Anytime I was off line, I chipped it stiff, which is what you have to do to shoot this kind of score," he added. "You can't hit every shot perfectly. Now and again you have to recover, which is what I did perfectly today."

Expert at making a break from the pack - he won the Claret Jug from ten shots behind - Lawrie recalled he was now in a better position at the Dunhill than he was in 2001. "I was five under at this stage when I won. I had a very good Saturday and Sunday that year and we can do that again. The third round at St Andrews will be great fun and I'm looking forward to it immensely."

Having played poorly at Kingsbarns on Thursday, Monty was back in the groove over his beloved Old Course.

His latest 67 for 140 means the Scot is 22 under par for his last seven rounds in St Andrews. "I made six 3s in a row at one stage around the turn and that was thanks to better putting," he said. "If you hole putts, it's going to make a difference."

Bunkered in the Beardies at the 14th, the Scot was uncertain how to plot his escape from such a penal trap and ended up making what he felt was a terrific 6. "I need another round in the mid-60s at Carnoustie, where I'm the course record holder," he said. "And another low one here on Sunday. My golf was better today, particularly compared to Thursday when my playing partner, Paul Casey, beat me by ten shots. That was embarrassing."

With Lawrie seven under for 36 holes and Monty needing to floor the accelerator on four under, the best-placed Scot remains Drummond on eight under. The former BMW champion at Wentworth agreed he responds well in the glare of the spotlight after posting 135.

"Maybe I get more inspired," he replied. "I try to get myself up for every event, but my best results have certainly been in the bigger tournaments. Majors and top events where you are playing for a lot of money and ranking points have more of a buzz about them. If those circumstances lift my game, then that's great. I just need to sharpen up in the smaller events as well."

But for two dropped shots over the closing three holes at Carnoustie, Drummond would have been even closer to the mark set by Dredge. Feeling at ease about his game after winning in Switzerland by eight shots last month, Dredge added 67 to the blistering course record of 64 he carded at the Old Course on Thursday.

The Welshman's iron work at Carnoustie was impressive - he once lost to Stephen Dundas on the Angus links in the 1992 final of the Amateur championship - and his chipping was also out of the top drawer. Dredge holed out from 30 feet left of the green on the second for 3 and repeated the feat from behind the green at the tenth. "I managed to scramble it round when I did hit a poor shot, and chipped in twice, which doesn't happen very often," he said.

Sweden's Johan Edfors and South Africa's Charl Schwartzel lie two behind the leader on ten under, with Vijay Singh a shot further back. But for a squall which knocked the Fijian out of his stride for a few holes, Singh might have fared even better than 70 for 135.

Some 19 years after he first came to Edinburgh in a bid to qualify for the Open at Muirfield - an attempt which failed in spite of practising every day on the qualifying course for a month - Singh admitted: "I would like to win on one of these great courses. I just find it difficult to get used to the conditions. But I like my position at this stage."

Once forced to supplement his income by working as a bouncer at an Edinburgh nightclub, Singh went on to become one of the most successful men in golf history, with career earnings on the US PGA Tour of $49 million, second only to Tiger Woods.

Playing at the Dunhill in the company of Ted Forstmann, the owner of IMG, Singh says the journey from where he was in Edinburgh during the Eighties, to where he is now, is all but unimaginable.

With just 3000 in his bank account, he'd set off for the home of golf in 1987. "I practised really hard, played the qualifying course every day for a month, and still missed the qualifying," he said. "I had a small sponsorship deal, plus I made money by being a bouncer at a nightclub in Edinburgh."

Where once he relied on his strength to earn a few extra pounds guarding the door of a nightclub, it's Singh's power as a golfer which makes him such a strong candidate this weekend to claim his first winner's cheque in Europe since the World Match Play at Wentworth ten years ago.