Irish are the strongest Link

WITH Peter Lawrie and Darren Clarke at the top of the leaderboard alongside David Howell on nine under at the halfway stage, and Gary Murphy only one shot off the pace, the Irish challenge for the huge money at stake in the Dunhill Links Championship could hardly be better positioned.

Contrary to expectation, it was another lovely day in eastern Scotland but the scoring was nowhere as good as one might have expected and prompted Padraig Harrington to insist that he was still in with a chance of retaining his title in spite of being six shots off the lead.

In fact, Harrington believed he was seven behind when he commented: "I thought I'd be a lot further back. Let me put it this way, every part of my game is at its lowest point right now but I'm not very far away from turning the corner."