Lowry and Lawrie in Open battle

The Irish duo of Shane Lowry and Peter Lawrie are now fighting for one of the last remaining places into next week’s British Open after posting similar scores for similar second round totals in the Scottish Open at Castle Stuart.

Lowry and Lawrie each carded second round 69s to move to nine under par and just three strokes from the leading duo of Italy’s Francesco Molinari (70) and Sweden’s Alex Noren (66), who head the field by a stroke on 12-under par.

Lowry’s round included six birdies but also a 16th hole double whereas Lawrie had a similar number of birdies but he dropped shots at 14 and 16.