Harrington still in touch

Padraig Harrington was part of a five-way tie for fifth heading into the final day of his first BMW PGA Championship at Wentworth.

The group, also including defending champion Paul Casey, were however five shots adrift of 22-year-old Chris Wood who was on eight under.

Wood’s four-under-par 67 was a superb effort, but it came after Swede Robert Karlsson – so convinced he had missed the halfway cut that he took a mid-afternoon flight from London to Nice – had returned and produced a simply stunning course record 62, the low round of the week by three.

Now the Ryder Cup ace could become the first man ever to win a European Tour event having made the cut with nothing to spare.

That is something Rory McIlroy did in America earlier this month, so he knows it is possible.

After 54 holes Wood is on the eight-under-par mark of 205, with Karlsson up from 63rd to joint second with another 22-year-old Englishman making his debut in the event, first-round leader Danny Willett.

“I couldn’t quite believe it,” said Wood when asked about Karlsson’s round.

“I saw it on the big scoreboard. I kept looking at the card and it was just birdie birdie birdie. Pretty awesome.

“I never felt like I hit the ball my best, but I scored really well. It will be a new experience leading (with a round to go), but there’s no better position to be in.”

Karlsson was just “a par five” from his front door when word reached him that things had changed and that the cut looked like being three over par, the figure he was on after finishing his second round lunchtime Friday with a double bogey seven.

Not even saying “Hi” to his wife down the road, he asked the taxi driver to take him back to the airport, caught a flight to Paris – there was nothing direct to London – and after two hours’ sleep paid 11,000 for a private jet leaving at 6am.

Teeing off at 8.55am, the 2008 European number one birdied five of the first seven holes to turn in 30 and by picking up further shots at the 12th, 14th and 16th even had a chance of the Tour’s first 59.

This, of course, on a West Course which has been significantly toughened up and has been the subject of huge controversy this week.

On the 601-yard 17th, however, he almost hooked out of bounds and had to make a 10-footer for his par five and at the 539-yard last, the most talked-about hole of them all, he laid up before pitching to 12 feet and making that for birdie.

After his championship as well as course record score Karlsson, who at the time had leapt into a tie for the lead with Donald, commented: “I said to my caddie out there that we’ve got an invitation to this party, so let’s party.

“Soren Hansen said at breakfast ’This trip has 63 written all over it’ and I said ’Could be 83, but we’ll see’.

“It feels like you definitely get a second chance. You just go out to enjoy it, but don’t touch my putter – you could burn your hands.”

Asked where he ranked the round Karlsson just smiled and replied: “Probably the most unexpected.”

His chances of the £637,000 first prize were boosted further when Donald bogeyed the first two holes and struggled to the turn in 37, but Wood did not buckle.

Fifth and third in the last two Opens, he had a hat-trick of birdies from the second for an outward 32 and went three clear with more birdies on the 11th and 12th.

Shaggy-haired Wood, last season’s Rookie of the Year, did then bogey the 13th and 15th, but he found the target from 25 feet at the 16th and a stunning bunker shot on the last enabled him to finish with a par five on the controversial 18th.

He and Karlsson both stand 6ft 5in, but Wood’s mop of blond hair just gives him the edge.

“The girls love it,” he joked. “That’s what is going to make me keep it, I think.”