Stephen Gallacher's next door neighbours do not have to worry.

The hooded man lurking about the vicinity in the middle of the night was actually him. Having strained his back while washing his car - thus ensuring a new entry on the hit parade of baffling sporting injuries - Gallacher's attempts to get himself fit for the Johnnie Walker Championship led to some fairly unusual nocturnal behaviour.

"I went out for a walk at half three just to try and loosen my back off and get things moving," he revealed, after opening his challenge at Gleneagles with a one-under 71. "Thank God the police didn't see me wandering the streets in the middle of the night with my hoodie up. Under the circumstances, that's probably the earliest I've got up for a round of golf but I needed to warm it up and see how it was. It was the acid test as to whether or not I could play."

Gallacher managed to creak and groan his way round the PGA Centenary course but it was a struggle. Saying that, the end result was still four shots better than his opening 75 in this event last year - and he went on to finish in a share of sixth then.

"If it was anywhere else I wouldn't have played, to be honest, but when you're on the doorstep and you like the course it's worth a shot," added this season's Dubai Desert Classic winner, who highlighted a battling round with an eagle-three on the 18th - his eighth - after a fine 4-iron approach rolled to within two feet. "I was probably at 80%," he said . "When I tried to really go for a shot I struggled. I couldn't really get through the ball and when I try to hit it I'm in pain. I can't get the posture right and I have to stand a bit weird. But sometimes you just have to grind it out."

It was a day when the injured seemed to prosper. Gallacher's fellow Scot, Richie Ramsay, had rated his chances of competing as "50-50" due to a niggling neck strain but he ploughed on yesterday, too. He could have made it even worse by craning to watch his playing partner, the big-hitting Alvaro Quiros, regularly booming drives some 30 yards in front of him but Ramsay's three-under 69 , which included a double-bogey six on the 13th, was still a shot better than the Spanish bomber.

"It's a different course he's playing," admitted the Aberdonian, who is one of the shorter hitters on the tour. "He got up to the ninth in two and it was playing 620 yards into the wind. If I had that length, well, the sky's the limit."