It's not a bad old life.

"They look after me very well at Gleneagles and always put me up in the hotel," said Paul Lawrie. "This year I'm in the Whisky Suite."

Come Sunday night, the Aberdonian will be hoping he's toasting another triumph on home soil. The 43-year-old, who has had plenty to celebrate of late having sealed his spot in the European Ryder Cup team, bolstered his assault on the Johnnie Walker Championship title with a three-under-par 69 over the PGA Centenary course which left him just a stroke off the pace with a seven-under 137.

Fittingly, it was an eagle at Gleneagles that kept Lawrie soaring among the high fliers on the leaderboard.

Sharing third at the start of the day, Lawrie, who teed-off on the 11th, made some telling advances with a trio of birdies on his outward half, but his momentum was halted on the first when, after a debate with his caddie, the Scot overcooked his approach to the green and stumbled to a bogey. Blame the bagman? "It was my mistake," Lawrie said. "We were in between clubs. Davey [his caddie] wanted me to hit a wedge short of the green and I saw a nine-iron and I hit it long into a little gully. It should've been the wedge."

Another leaked shot on the second, where he found the bunker off the tee, threatened to derail the Lawrie express but he got himself back on track with a three-wood to within 20-feet on the ninth which spawned an eagle. "I rolled that one in and gave a fist pump, which is unlike me," he added. "Maybe it's practise for the Ryder Cup."

Having won the Open at Carnoustie in 1999 and the Dunhill Links over the Old Course at St Andrews in 2001, another victory in his homeland would go down as nicely as a dram of Johnnie Walker's finest. "It's good to put up a good show in any tournament in Scotland," said Lawrie, who also won the Scottish PGA title at Gleneagles in 2005. "Winning again in Scotland will always be a big goal."