Andrew McArthur set a new course record with a flawless round of 62 at Deeside yesterday to elbow his way into the kind of company he wants to be keeping at the Paul Lawrie Invitational.
The 32-year-old Glasgow-based golfer had to hole just one putt of more than eight feet, a 15-footer at the second which got his round going, in registering eight birdies to deny the tournament host a place in today’s final group as the 54-hole event comes to its conclusion.
Having lost his European Tour card at the end of last year, having won just £39,235 in finishing 198th on the Race to Dubai, McArthur, a winner on the Challenge Tour in 2008, was sick of the pressure he had been putting himself under and took four months out while he and wife Laura awaited the birth of their first son, Ben, in March.
“I was absolutely hating it,” he said of that decision to take a break after the second stage of the Tour Qualifying School.
McArthur has put himself in pole position to pick up a valuable prize in the shape of a £3000 Ebel Watch put up by Finnie’s the Jewellers for the week’s lowest round and, if he wins the title, the £4000 cheque would more than double his earnings from five Challenge Tour appearances this season.
While he has clearly still been finding it tough and recognises that he is still making mental errors, his appetite for the game has returned and he is particularly relishing the prospect of playing alongside European Tour regular Kenneth Ferrie today. “Sponsorship doesn’t exist in Scotland at the moment, so I’ve been living on the bread-line,” he said, admitting that he had been forced to lean on parents, Iain and Mary, to see him through some testing times.
“This is a fantastic tournament, though, and the pro-am was great to play in. Any opportunity to play competitive golf is good and this [playing alongside Ferrie] is what it’s all about.”
The third member of the leading group is Mark Kerr, the 27-year-old Murrayfield trainee professional who matched Ferrie’s effort by following an opening 67 with a five-under-par 65 yesterday.
On a day when excellent weather contributed to improved scoring, Lawrie had set the pace with his own 65, in spite of knocking a ball out of bounds at the par-4 third hole and, three off the pace, he will be part of a dangerous penultimate group which also includes Greig Hutcheon, the Tartan Tour leader, who is a further shot back.
Curiously, Lawrie’s bad example was followed by one of his proteges, David Law, the former Scottish Amateur champion, who eagled that long third hole with his second ball to salvage a par as he battled his way to a 73 which allowed him to make the cut with two shots to spare.
If that was a significant achievement, in a week which began disappointingly for Law when he failed to reach the matchplay stages at the Amateur Championship, another was that of Heather MacRae, who two years ago became the first woman to play in a Scottish PGA event in the modern era and yesterday made a cut for the first time.
She had to wait until the very last group of the day finished since if all three improved on her 143, three-over par total, she would have been among those closed out.
Kenny Hutton of Downfield (137) and Michael Patterson of Kilmacolm (142) both did so, but Scott McGrenaghan’s four-over-par 74 for a 145 total, let MacRae make that breakthrough.
That, in turn, led to some good-natured teasing for her boyfriend, Chris Kelly, from their fellow professionals since last season’s 10th-placed finisher on the Scottish PGA Order of Merit comfortably missed the cut to be met with the suggestion that he should pull on a bib and caddie for MacRae today.
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