Lawrie leads but Raitt still in doghouse
Lawrie now has his sights set on a first win: "That's the one thing that's missing, putting four rounds together," he said. "I've been up with the leaders after two or three rounds this year but not finished it off."
England's Andrew Raitt shared second place with six other players including Sweden's Christopher Hanell, the winner of the Madeira Island Open on Sunday, and Spain's Gabriel Canizares.
Philip Walton was among those a shot further back after a 68, while Welshman Ian Woosnam, carded a 71.
Raitt is set to quit golf at the end of the season even if he wins. The £139,000 first prize would not even "touch the surface" of his financial problems after the ruinous expense of legal action against the owner of the dog which bit off part of his little finger in 1995.
Raitt was walking his dog at his home club of St George's Hill in Weybridge when it was attacked by an Alsatian named Zomba.
When he tried to separate the dogs, the Alsatian bit the tip of his left little finger, leaving it shorter by half a centimetre and lacking in sensation.
The 34-year-old told an English judge it forced him to change his grip and his play suffered as a result, but the judge said he was "not persuaded there has been anything other than an imperceptible movement of his grip" and that this "has had no impact on his ability as a player".
Raitt was therefore awarded just £4,900 damages in December 2002 less than he had been offered out of court and after an unsuccessful appeal last year has been left with a legal bill approaching £400,000.
"They already accepted it was their dog, it was their fault, it was a question of does it affect your golf," said Raitt, who is resigned to losing his house and car.
"They tried for seven years to find a golf pro to say that it didn't and in the end they found someone former European Open winner Andrew Murray who had never met me, never seen my finger, but turned round and said it had no effect at all.
"I'd never met him before we were stood outside the court waiting to go in. I tried to speak to him afterwards but he won't talk to me. He says there are only two things that can happen either I beat him up or he feels guilty."
Raitt has twice had surgery in Brazil with a surgeon he met playing in a tournament pro-am to try and get some feeling back in the finger by squeezing fat tissue from the bottom of the finger to the top. But despite a slight improvement he is in constant pain and the effort of changing his grip and swing to compensate also left him with a shoulder injury which saw him miss nine months of 2001.
"It was affecting my whole physique," added Raitt. "I lost all the muscle down the left side of my back because of the way I gripped it and my shoulder became unstable. I was having regular cortisone injections just to play. The judge said the injury hadn't made a difference to my ability but I think it takes away the difference between the good players and the bad players.
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