It’s a funny old game. After three holes of his first round here in the 36-hole Aberdeen Asset Management Scottish Open qualifier at Barassie, Gareth Wright looked about as downbeat as Pedro Caixinha reading a fans’ forum.
By the time he bounded off the 18th green, with a course-record equalling nine-under 64, he was beaming like Brendan Rodgers after a scale and polish.
With just four places on offer for next week’s $7 million bonanza at nearby Dundonald Links, Wright took a major stride towards joining some of the game’s biggest names with a superbly assembled round which caught fire after a fairly hum-drum start. The 35-year-old Edinburgh-based Welshman leads by four from European Tour player, Scott Henry, and is on course to come through the qualifying scramble for the third successive year. “I three-putted both the second and the third and I was ready to throw the putter in the water,” said the current Scottish PGA champion. “But I gave myself a serious talking to going up the fourth and that seemed to work.”
It certainly did. From the fifth he covered his next nine holes in eight-under during a rampaging assault which propelled him up the order. His charge was aided considerably by a chip-in for an eagle on the eighth and another eagle on the long 12th, where he launched a 4-iron into 15-feet and trundled in the putt. A brace of birdies at the 16th and 18th put the tin lid on a terrific show but, in this pursuit, you’re never satisfied. “I had two lip-outs and two or three more birdie putts that came within half a roll of a dropping,” he added. “It could’ve been 12-under.”
Having established a sturdy foothold at the top of the leaderboard, Wright is not counting his chickens just yet, particularly with the weather set to turn for today’s closing round. “You don’t have to do too much wrong on this course to run up some damaging numbers,” he said with caution.
Henry birdied three of his last five holes in a 68 which included a lost ball on the eighth. “My eyes started watering over my tee-shot, it was maybe the wind, and I just put a bad swing on it and sliced it,” he said. “I made a birdie with my second ball so I was quite happy to limit the damage to just a bogey six.”
Henry illuminated his card with a 4-iron into 20-feet for a birdie on the 14th but confessed he wasn’t in the best of fettle at the end of his round. “I just feel achy all over and I just hope I’m not coming down with something.”
Craig Ross, the Kirkhill amateur, put himself in contention for a Scottish Open berth with a 69 as he finished alongside Jack Doherty, the winner of the qualifying event at Lossiemouth last year. His tactic for the final day is pretty simple. “You just have to go out and play to win this,” said Doherty of an event which boasts a first prize of £4,500. “I know there are four spots on offer but it’s probably better not to look at it like that. Just play to win and that will take care of it.”
On the European Challenge Tour, meanwhile, Blairgowrie’s Bradley Neil was sitting in a share of second place heading into the closing round of the Prague Golf Challenge.
The former Amateur champion posted a six-under 66 for a 15-under 201 and finished four shots behind English frontrunner, Garrick Porteous, who fired a 64.
In Belgium, Heather MacRae, the former Scottish Girls’ champion, secured a play-off victory in the Belfius Open on the Ladies European Tour’s Access Series.
MacRae edged out England’s Meg McLaren in the sudden-death shoot-out after both players had finished tied on six-under aggregates.
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