Jacquelin well placed for maiden tour victory

Just a week after England’s John Bickerton won his first European Tour title at the 287th attempt, Frenchman Raphael Jacquelin is poised to make it 238th time lucky.

The 31-year-old from Lyon goes into the final 18 holes of the Madrid Open seven ahead, a third successive 64 having taken him to a 21-under-par total of 192 which equals the tour record set by Tiger Woods in the NEC World Championship five years ago.

Jacquelin’s aggregate will not enter the history books, however, because placing has been allowed on the wet fairways all week.

Darren Clarke did not have a bogey all day, but that was not the name of the game on a Club de Campo course playing dead easy after recent heavy rain.

The Ulsterman’s 68 still left him joint second, now with Portugal’s Jose-Filipe Lima, while Order of Merit leader Colin Montgomerie, 10 adrift at halfway, is 11 behind in joint 11th place after a 65 – one outside the target he thought might keep his hopes alive.

Clarke said of the runaway leader’s performance: “He played fantastically. A 64 was the worst score he could have possibly shot.

“I’ve lost a six-shot lead (at the 1999 European Open), but he’s going to be hard to catch. He’s playing unbelievably well.”

Jacquelin, who now holds the biggest 54-hole lead of the season, has had four second places – Bickerton had five – since making his debut 10 years ago.

He would be the popular choice of “best player yet to win” on the circuit. He has finished in the top 30 o the Order of Merit three times in the past four seasons, but has slipped to 60th this year.

“It’s strange because I feel better in my game,” he said.

“To win would be fantastic – I’ve been waiting. I feel confident and I’m just going to try to stay relaxed and keep the ball in play.”

With Jacquelin setting such a fierce pace Montgomerie virtually conceded defeat afterwards, but there will be no let-up from the Scot.

“Who knows – the Order of Merit could come down to what I’ve earned here,” he said. “I will just do as well as I can.

“It’s more Ryder Cup points, more Order of Merit points, more world ranking points – and that’s why I am here.

“I’m playing as well as I ever have and I’m very relaxed. There’s no reason why I shouldn’t be – I’m enjoying myself.”

Highlight of his round was a driver off the deck to 18 inches for a tap-in eagle at the 14th.

The 42-year-old Scot went to the top of the money list for the first time in six years with his third-place finish behind Tiger Woods and John Daly at last week’s American Express World Championship in San Francisco.

Winner of the Order of Merit a record seven times in a row from 1993 to 1999, an eighth is now in sight. Michael Campbell and Retief Goosen are the only two players who can catch him, and neither is playing either this week or in next week’s Majorca Classic.

It will come down to the Volvo Masters in two weeks, but just a top 10 finish by Montgomerie tomorrow would mean Goosen has to be first or second at Valderrama and Campbell will need no worse than fifth – just to have a chance.

And the New Zealander finished dead last there last year on 22 over par after a closing 82. Safe to say it is not the course he would choose.

Clarke, who sought an invitation to the event because he did not want to travel all the way to America as originally planned with his wife Heather fighting cancer, could not matc any of Jacquelin’s birdies at the second, third and fourth and so found himself six back.

Ryder Cup captain Ian Woosnam is tied for sixth after his 68, but Scotland’s Paul Lawrie shot 66 to move up to fourth.