THE SHORT straw for golfers here is a late draw. Yesterday, by the time Peter Lawrie walked down the 18th fairway – some eight hours after first-out David Horsey had shot a 67 that still left the Englishman sharing the lead at day’s end – the shadows stretched almost completely across the fairways and greens.

Yet, in signing for a 70, two under, Lawrie – with two top-10 finishes in three tournaments – reaffirmed the wellbeing of his game. If there was any note of irritation after a round where he had shown tremendous patience, it was that he failed to birdie either of the closing par fives. But, then, he was still on to the shoulders of the leading bunch.

“I like this course, it suits my game. I enjoy the strategic challenge,” observed Lawrie, who reached the turn in one over but came home in 34 strokes to move with a degree of stealth through the field. The highlight? A birdie on the 16th, from 20 feet.

But that was that, the final holes – the 17th ranked, the fourth easiest, and the 18th the easiest – failed to yield to the Dubliner.

Horsey, who answered a 5am alarm call, made the most of the pristine greens to shoot a 67 that was later equalled by Anthony Wall and Spain’s Gonzalo Fernandez-Castano, who eagled the last.

A Walker Cup team-mate of Rory McIlroy’s at Royal County Down two years ago, Horsey claimed his tour card off the Challenge Tour last year and is hoping his on-course deeds will help his mother’s recuperation from breast cancer.

“She was diagnosed at the end of the year and just had her last chemotherapy yesterday. She’s got three weeks of radiotherapy coming up shortly and hopefully that will be it . . . I do try hard not to think about it when I’m playing. What she would want for me is to keep on playing.”