Lyle still making best of borderline opportunities

Published on Sunday 22 July 2007 00:09

MAKING the cut? It's like winning a major, said Sandy Lyle after a third successive round of 73 marked his steady progress at his 30th successive Open.

You could be forgiving for thinking that Lyle - who is 50 in the spring - would be preparing to give up the tour and turn his mind to the senior circuit, but yesterday he made clear he still had a healthy appetite for the game.

Lyle plainly takes huge satisfaction in appearing in the final round of this year's tournament, the second time he has made the cut in a major this year, after an impressive display at the US Masters.

"That's not a bad little year," said Lyle. "Any time you make the cut in the Open it is almost like winning it for me. Some players just expect it, but others struggle a bit. I'm in that borderline between making it and not making it."

It speaks volumes for Lyle that he will be out here at Carnoustie battling away again in today's final round. He has reached a pinnacle - and an intelligent maturity which allows him to recognise that the pressure is off. His game is in good shape, and as he said yesterday: "If the putts start to drop - who knows, I might hit a low 65."

Contrast that prospect with the fate of his contemporaries. Woosnam has not qualified for this year's Open. The spiky Faldo missed the cut on Friday after his miserable first round 79 condemned him to stump away from Carnoustie at 10 over par.

Lyle will be going to Muirfield this week to discuss the possibility of joining the senior tour, but said he was in no rush to come to a firm decision. The ideal he said would be to be able to pick and chose events from the PGA and senior tours to keep himself playing competitively throughout the year.

Lyle has been so determined to play this week that he has competed with a damaged right hand, an injury picked up at the BMW International Open in Munich last month.

Yesterday there were no such obstacles. From the warm ovation on the first tee, things seemed set fair for him, and he seemed ready to grasp the opportunity. He enjoyed the best of the weather among the early starters and a comfortable early 10am tee-off time ensured he had a large following throughout the early and encouraging holes.

Regularly driving 30 yards further than his playing partner, the former US PGA champion Shaun Micheel, and playing quickly and decisively, Lyle seemed to be a man on a mission.

A booming 8-iron off the first tee set up a birdie which should have been, but Carnoustie - where he missed the cut in 1999 - was to stifle him again. After driving long from the tee on two, his approach let him down, when another birdie might have followed. On the difficult third, a putt from 15 feet squeezed agonisingly past the cup.

On the fifth he recovered from a loose drive down the right to claim his par. On the 578-yard sixth two huge drives brought him again within range of another birdie, but a desperate two putt let the opportunity slip, and he was bunkered at the seventh where he dropped the first shot of his round. Further dropped shots followed at the par-4 10th and the difficult 12th.

Two enormous 3-woods on the 514-yard 14th ate up the ground and left him a 30-foot putt for an eagle. When Lyle double-bogeyed the 16th, any lingering hopes he had of making a serious impression on the leaderboard had disappeared.

It was disappointing end to a promising round. But Lyle was upbeat. "Seventy-three is not too disgraceful", he said with a smile.