Oscar Pistorius’s Dunhill Links blog: Digby the dog brings a lucky streak

It was a really relaxed round in the sunshine at Kingsbarns today. It was also full of laughs.

Paul Casey, who was playing in our foursome with Michael Phelps, had his ball taken by a dog called Digby on the 12th hole. He hit a great shot which was sitting on the green, around 30 feet from the pin when Digby scoffed the ball and trotted off. It was so cool and we had a good laugh about it.

I thought Digby was my lucky charm because as it showed up I drove a ball 330 yards and was then trying to keep the dog with us for the rest of the round.

I had said yesterday that after a tough round at Carnoustie, we were glad to be moving on to Kingsbarns and it certainly proved to be a day of better scoring. My playing partner Paul McGinley played well today, shooting a round of four under.

In the team competition we started the day at two over but managed to score five under to end the day at minus three overall which I am pleased with.

I would sum up my own performance as a day where I made some great drives but, sadly, far too many bad putts. My manager Pete, who accompanied us on our round today, was giving me a real ribbing about my putting. He joked that if the old maxim about driving is for show and putting is for dough was true, then I would be a very poor man!

Still, there were some real highlights for me. One of them was my drive on the 18th which I hit well over 200 yards and brought it just short of the burn. That restored a bit of pride after a few tough holes yesterday.

Another highlight today was to finally meet Michael Phelps. We have moved around the same circles for years but until today we’d never actually met. He’s a very nice guy and we enjoyed lots of laughs during the round. He’s also a decent golfer and made some impressive shots, including a ridiculously great eagle putt on the seventh.

I’m really looking forward to playing on the Old Course. It’s great to have had the opportunity to play some practice rounds there earlier in the week which certainly inspires confidence going into tomorrow.

• Oscar Pistorious is blogging exclusively from the Alfred Dunhill Links Championship for Scotsman.com