Burton shows the way ahead

In two weeks' time the European Solheim Cup team for the match against the United States will be picked. And Janice Moodie, no matter what she does this week or next, up to and including winning the Women's British Open at Royal Lytham tomorrow, will not be in it.

Moodie, three over par after 36 holes, is only two shots behind the leader Brandie Burton and one behind Leslie Spalding, both Americans. But the Glasgow-born golfer is yet another example of the Bisley-like accuracy employed by European golf authorities when it comes to taking pot-shots at their own feet.

The Scot, a former Curtis Cup player, is one of the 12 best European players and should be in the team that goes to Jack Nicklaus's Muirfield Village course next month. But she has no chance of being there because she will not have played the stipulated number of European tournaments, five, in order to be eligible. Moodie, who is level with the American Wendy Ward and England's Sue Strudwick at three over, might well have been leading outright but for Lytham's fearsome finish. Holes 17 and 18 are the two most difficult and they cost Moodie three shots, mostly because she was in bunkers at both.

By the same token Burton might have led by more were it not for her own entanglement with the sand. The short ninth is surrounded by nine bunkers and the American found one from the tee. The ball was plugged so badly that she had to play away from the pin and then hit the ball so hard that it ran over the green into another bunker. It added up to a doublebogey five.

Burton came home in 36, one under par, and was one of only eight players to break par on the hugely difficult homeward half.

With the scoring high, it means that the Korean Pak, despite rounds of 78 and 74, is only seven behind Burton and by no means out of contention, while Annika Sorenstam, at four over, and Marie-Laure de Lorenzi, at five over, are in the thick of things.

Laura Davies three-putted the last green to miss the cut by one shot.