Nothing criminal about Dyson's 68

Yorkshire’s Simon Dyson produced perhaps the best 68 of his career at Carnoustie today – after waking up to find his clubs had been stolen from the boot of his car.

“I discovered it at 20 to seven,” said Dyson, who was due to tee off at 9am in the second round of the £3million Dunhill links championship.

“I went out to the car, a brand new Audi, and found they’d smashed the back window, ripped out the thing that covers the boot and taken my clubs and bag.”

Included in the set were a handmade putter which Dyson said was “the only one that has been made in the whole world.

“I don’t know what it was worth, but I’d say it was priceless. I was gutted, absolutely gutted.

“At first I thought it was just the window that had been smashed. That was bad enough considering I’ve only had it for two weeks, but then all of a sudden I didn’t see the clubs and I panicked a little.

“I didn’t know what to do. I was walking around like a headless chicken for about 20 minutes.

“I phoned Nick Dougherty up and said ’I don’t know what I’m going to do’ and just by chance he said he had a spare set with him, but they were Callaways and I play Ping.

“I used his irons and his driver, borrowed a three-wood from one of my mates in the tournament office and a putter from Bradley Dredge. It worked a dream.”

Dyson had opened with a 71 at St Andrews, but after starting with seven pars at Carnoustie he birdied five of the next eight before dropping his only stroke at the difficult 17th.

On five under par he is in joint 15th place alongside Ernie Els and Colin Montgomerie, but seven behind leader Padraig Harrington.

“I’m going to carry them for the rest of the tournament. It might just have been a flash in the pan, but I have always liked Callaway, so it is always nice when you get a club that you like, so we’ll see what happens tomorrow at Kingsbarns.

“When I got to the range I half didn’t feel like playing at all, to tell you the truth. You save up to buy a new car and then this happens.

“I had to leave the car because if I had waited for the police to come I’d have missed my tee-off time. At least everything was insured.”