Martin Laird muscled his way into a share of third place and just one shot off the lead after two rounds of the Wyndham Championship at Greensboro, North Carolina.
Laird picked off seven birdies including three in succession from his 12th hole in a round of a four-under-par 66 and a nine-under total around the Sedgefield Country Club course. It left him a stroke adrift of two Americans, Heath Slocum and Scott Langley, each of whom shot 65 for 10-under par totals.
Laird teed up in the $5.3m event in 136th position on the FedEx Cup points table and needing to be inside the top 125 by Sunday night to be assured of a place in the start of the four-event FedEx Cup Play-off Series in New Jersey on Thursday.
"I'm one back from the lead with two rounds to go, so I'm trying now to win the golf tournament," he said. "It's important for me to get into the FedEx Cup Play-offs but right now the important thing for me is to win and right now I'm in a great spot going into the weekend. If I do get into next week it's an added bonus, but I want to have a shot at winning this tournament come Sunday."
While Laird boosts hope of a fourth PGA Tour success, and a first since he captured last year's Valero Texas Open, his fellow Scot Stephen Gallacher arrived home this morning having missed out on the chance of earning a PGA Tour card for the 2014/15 season. Needing to finish in the top 15 in Greensboro, he crashed out with scores of 71 and 76 for a seven over par 147 total.
"I came hereto give it a go and it just didn't work out, so I'm not overly disappointed," said Gallacher. "I've got the next two events on the European Tour to contest before Ryder Cup qualifying ends; if I do well in those two, you never know. What I will do next year is play a few more events over here around the majors and the WGCs [World Golf Championship events] and see how it pans out that way."
While he heads home, the future of three-time major winner Padraig Harrington is in doubt after he lost full PGA Tour membership for a first time since 2007 in missing the North Carolina cut with a pair of 72s.
He is eligible to take up a one-time Tour exemption as a result of being in the top 50 on the PGA Tour all-time money list, or to contest the secondary Web.com Final Four Series and, if he was to finish in the top 25, he would regain his PGA Tour card for the 2014/15 season.
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereComments are closed on this article