There’s a house for rent just off the 18th fairway in the plush Wentworth estate. Bradley Neil found himself guddling around in the bushes that border it for so long after a hooked drive you feared he’d have to sign a tenancy agreement.
In the end, the Blairgowrie youngster got home and dry as he safely eased through to the closing 36-holes of the BMW PGA Championship after a late second-round wobble last night.
His three-under 69 for a four-under 140 saw him finish alongside his compatriots Richie Ramsay and Stephen Gallacher, as four home hopefuls lived to fight another day.
Neil, the 22-year-old European Tour rookie, had been making fine progress up the order and, after four birdies in his opening seven holes, the former Amateur champion was flirting with the top 10.
A bogey on 16, however, was then followed by that wild tee-shot on the last. Having pondered his situation for a while with his caddie amid much hands-on-hips deliberation, Neil tried to batter his way out of the shrubbery but his shot clattered a tree and popped out just a few yards from where he was standing.
“It could’ve been worse, though. It played pinball off the trees and I said to myself ‘where’s it gone?’” reflected Neil. “To be honest, I s*** myself at the time as it could have gone anywhere so it was a huge relief to see that it was lying okay.”
Neil, who earned promotion to the top table from last year’s Challenge Tour, would go on to make bogey on the last green but there was no real damage done as he arrested a run of four successive missed cuts on the main circuit. With a total prize fund this week of $7m, this is a good event to make the weekend.
“These Rolex Series events are massive,” he added of the vast sums on offer this week and in the forthcoming Italian Open. “They are season-changing and maybe even life-changing. It was quite stressful coming in there.
“This is the biggest event I’ve played in as a professional and it’s at a vital stage of the season too. But I’ve played some of my best golf of the season here and now that I’ve made the cut I can free myself up and try to kick on.”
Gallacher also added a 69 for his four-under aggregate while Ramsay’s 71 left him on the same number.
Gallacher had started his first round on Thursday with 14 straight pars. It was a different kettle of fish during the second round, though.
He had just three par figures over that same stretch of holes as he made a haul of seven birdies and four bogeys. “That’s golf for you,” said the former Ryder Cup player. “I left a few out there to be honest. I missed a couple of good chances and had a couple of three putts too. I nearly had a hole in one at the second as well. I hit it to a couple of inches with a 9-iron.”
Marc Warren, who lost out in a play-off for this title in 2013, was the fourth Scot to qualify on a 143 but there was late anguish for the Tartan Tour’s No.1, Paul O’Hara, as he exited at the halfway stage.
Sitting safely inside the cut mark, after building on his opening 71 with a good start to round two, O’Hara leaked six shots over his last five holes as the chance of earning potentially the biggest pay day of his career went up in smoke.
A crippling four-putt from some 12-feet cost him a triple-bogey seven on the 15th and he would finish with another seven on the last as a promising campaign unravelled over the closing stretch on the West Course. It’s a cruel old game.
David Drysdale, who was third in Belgium last week, was another home player to depart early on 145 while Scott Jamieson and Tartan Tour man Gavin Hay also joined the Scottish casualty list.
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