McGinley back to his best with birdie blitz

PAUL MCGINLEY and Mark O’Meara fed off each other yesterday to make a nonsense of their alarming slide down the world rankings.

Ryder Cup hero McGinley, who has dropped from 35th at the end of 2001 to 159th, had a magical eight successive birdies and 14 in 24 holes as he took the second round lead in the Dubai Desert Classic.

But O'Meara, at 47 years old and a lowly 201st in the rankings six years on from the Masters and Open triumphs put him fourth, is only one behind after a second round 64.

After completing his opening 68 with four birdies in a row half the field had to return to finish off after Thursday's fog delay McGinley set off again 30 minutes later with four more.

Eight in succession is the European tour record, but they have to come in one round, so the Dubliner's feat will not be listed in the history books.

McGinley was happy enough, though, after adding five more for a 65 and halfway total of 133, 11 under par. He and O'Meara had a better-ball score of 58.

Tiger Woods is six behind and Ernie Els eight adrift with seven holes of his second round to play, fog having caused another hold-up at the start.

"If I knew the secret I would probably bottle it and use it every week," said McGinley, who still receives congratulations wherever he goes for holing the winning putt in the 2002 Ryder Cup.

"I would dearly like to have an opportunity to play again and I'm very disappointed with my world ranking position. I don't look any more it's only depressing.

"I don't feel I've played that badly in the last year and a half, but I haven't had many big finishes."

O'Meara had only one top-10 cheque last year and his finishing position of 143rd on the US Tour was the lowest of a career going back to 1981.

He does know what happened. He started putting "as bad as a human being can putt".

A new grip he calls 'The Saw' has given him more confidence, however, and he is convinced he can be more than just Woods' travelling companion again.

O'Meara nearly did not make the long trip because of a back problem and that was hardly helped by Wednesday's flying visit with Woods to American troops on the aircraft carrier George Washington in the Gulf.

"They catapult you off and you're strapped in pretty good, but it's a pretty good force," he commented. "Tiger looked over like 'Yeah, let's do that again'."