Lawrie just two shots adrift

THE LONDON Club is one challenging place to play golf when the wind is up. It doesn’t even take a gale, just a breeze sweeping across this North Downs terrain that is perched 800ft above sea level and therefore, by Kentish standards, positively alpine.

Yesterday was a classic example. Prepared meticulously by the European Tour’s own groundforce and therefore offering razor-slick greens and clumpy rough that looks innocuous but then strangles a man’s clubface, the hills were alive to the sound of much painful yelping in this second round of the European Open.

Henrik Stenson was definitely not grinning when he signed for a nine-over-par 81. Retief Goosen, the quiet assassin of world golf for so long, shot himself in the foot with his own 79. Thomas Aiken, a young South African who came into this week in form and looking for sponsors was last night looking for a lift home after 81.

Colin Montgomerie just squeezed into the weekend action but Shane Lowry has ended his first professional stint; he was seven over and so too is the man he played off against for the Irish Open a fortnight ago, Robert Rock. The Englishman finished off his two-day shift with a double-bogey, bogey, double-bogey climax to equal the worst round of the day, 81.

The 22-year-old Lowry, playing his first tournament as a professional after claiming a shock victory as an amateur at Baltray earlier this month, followed his opening 78 with a 73 to finish on seven-over 151.

“I am looking forward to just being another player out there and being able to get on with it,” said Lowry. “I wasn’t really firing on all cylinders so I didn’t really learn much (this week).”

Lowry said he may have been too aggressive too often at the London Club in Kent. “I went for a couple of pins when I shouldn’t have but that’s life. I was trying to go out and shoot a 65 but I’ll be okay and I’ll go and get ready for next week’s Wales Open.”

The leaderboard bears a generally unfamiliar look. There are a couple of exceptions. One is joint-leader Jeev Milkha Singh, the first Indian to make the Euro Tour and a player of genuine talent and achievement.

The other is Anthony Wall, who marked his 34th birthday yesterday with a 69 for a seven under par total and just one off the lead. This was compiled in the slightly easier morning conditions.

Whatever, he says that having spent his teenage years beating Paul Casey – Wall is 12 months senior to last week’s PGA champion – he is now ready to go one better and win the British Open. “Before I’m 40, I hope,” he said.

“I’ve been a pretty good player now for over a year. Technically I’m better and, being older, things don’t bother me quite as much. Before that I was bit of an also-ran but I’ve never lost faith in my own ability to play this game not just to make a living but to win things.

“Hopefully I am moving into a winning phase now,” added the man who won the 2000 Alfred Dunhill Championship.

The other player showing the most impressive golf up to this point is a young Frenchman who wears his hair a la Rory McIlroy.

Michael Lorenzo-Vera is a rugby nut from Biarritz who promises much. This includes daft stuff like when he tumbled downstairs at home last year and damaged his wrist. Now fully recovered, Lorenza-Vera shot 69 yesterday to hit the top of everything alongside Singh, each eight under par at this halfway point.

So far, however, the Frenchman is, quite remarkably, bogey-free. It may be interesting to note that three of his four sideshow titles have been won on the Alps Tour.

Clearly, this 24-year-old has a head for heights. The London Club just might suit him down to the ground.

Ireland’s Peter Lawrie is in a four-way tie for fifth place at the halfway stage, two shots adrift of the leaders, after adding a 71 yesterday to his opening 67.

Paul McGinley will also be around for the weekend after he shot a 75 to add to an opening 70 for a total of 145 but Damien McGrane (74) and Gary Murphy (73) missed the cut. Both finished on a four-over tally of 148.