Scottish trio in title hunt

They are all in contention in their respective events heading into the final rounds tomorrow, with Montgomerie chasing an historic hat-trick.

Four off the pace after an opening 73, the 52-year-old now leads the Travis Perkins Masters at Woburn, having battled back into contention with the best round of the week, a five-under-par 67.

Montgomerie created European Tour history by winning the PGA Championship at Wentworth from 1998 to 2000.

Now, in his senior career, he is close to emulating that achievement, having won the Woburn event for the last two years on the Duke’s Course.

“That score was the very least that I needed to get back into contention,” said Montgomerie after holing a 35-foot putt from just off the final green to edge ahead of Spaniard Santiago Luna.

Two other Scots, Bill Longmuir and Scott Drummond, are tied for third along with Phil Golding of England and Cesar Monasterio from Argentina.

“I wasn’t feeling great on the course yesterday and I had a terrible hour in the middle of my round where I dropped four shots in five holes which was just ridiculous,” added Montgomerie.

“I turned a good start into a very poor round and it would have been easy to shoot 75, never mind 73.

“The difference today is that I holed a couple of what I call ‘momentum’ putts, especially at the tenth. I was three under par through the turn and got plugged in a bunker, came out to 30 feet and holed it. That was a momentum putt that kept me going and I had three more birdies from then on.”

Lee, meanwhile, took route 66 in Moscow to catapult himself into contention in the M2M Russian Open on the European Tour.

The Stirling man’s flawless five-under-par effort moved him to 11-under-par - two behind Lee Slattery as the Englishman took over from Welshman Bradley Dredge in top spot with a 67.

“I’m delighted with five under - I certainly would have taken it before we went out,” said Lee, who is chasing his maiden victory on the main circuit.

“I’ve actually hit the ball really well all week. I really struggled on the greens and I think most of my bogeys have been three-putts so I managed to keep them off the cards and I managed to keep them off the card and rolled a couple of nice long ones in.

“I’ve struggled with the putter so I didn’t expect to hit five under today but if I keep hitting it like that, who knows, I might roll a couple in and we’ll see what happens.”

Lee is among four Scots in the top 20, with David Drysdale (69) sitting joint-eighth on seven-under, Scott Jamieson (71) tied for 13th on six-under and Chris Doak (70) joint-19th on five-under.

On the Challenge Tour, Law is still in the hunt despite losing his lead in the Cordon Golf Open in France.

Dutchman Dan Huizing moved to the top of the leaderboard on eight-under with a 66 but has Law (70) breathing down his neck along with Australian Scott Arnold and Northern Ireland’s Chris Selfridge.

On the Ladies European Tour, Kylie Walker jumped up to joint-13th with a third-round 71 in the Helsingborg Open in Sweden, where Dane Nicole Broch Larsen is on course for a wire-to-wire win.

Elsewhere, Scotland’s men won the bronze medals in the European Senior Team Championship with a 3-2 win over France in Bulgaria.