Golf/Dunhill Links Championship: Graeme McDowell, another great talent from the Walker Cup crop of 1999-01, equalled the course record yesterday and so took the lead in the Dunhill Links Championship writes David Davies at St Andrews.

The Ulsterman got round a benign Old Course in 62, 10 under par, to lead by three strokes from Retief Goosen, David Howell and Peter Lonard, all of whom compiled their 65s at Kingsbarns, and James Kingston, who had his at Carnoustie, one of the three courses used in this event.

McDowell, like Luke Donald and Paul Casey who played in last month's Ryder Cup, starred in American college golf and headed the rankings in 2001-2. He almost made the team for the match at Oakland Hills and already seems a certainty for the next one, in Ireland in 2006. Yesterday he was four ahead of Donald and eight in front of Casey, who were both at Kingsbarns.

It is an oddity that, though Goosen considered Kingsbarns was probably the hardest of the three courses and St Andrews the easiest, the only player at St Andrews in the top 10 was McDowell and he was six ahead of the next best score over the Old Course, Jose Maria Olazabal's 68.

The top 10 scores, in fact, consisted of one from St Andrews, four from Carnoustie and five from Kingsbarns.

For McDowell, yesterday was a case that, if ignorance is bliss, then a combination of luck and guesswork, allied to an ability to take advantage of it, can be ecstasy. It was only the fifth time he had played the course, and he admitted afterwards: "I feel like I rode my luck in certain places and, for a guy who probably doesn't know quite how to play this course, a 62 is almost blasphemy."

He went on: "At times I realised I was making wrong decisions. For instance, at the fourth, my playing partner, Jeff Remesy, hit his tee-shot way over on the left-hand side and I hit it up the narrow right-hand side. We had a bit of time before the second shots, so I walked over to where he was and I realised that that was the way to play the hole."

The prime requirement at St Andrews, of course, is to avoid places called Hell, Coffin or Grave - in other words, some of the nastiest pot bunkers in existence. "I dodged all of them today," said McDowell, "which I believe Tiger Woods did very successfully in 2000."

Indeed the American, in winning that year's British Open by eight shots, was not in a single bunker all week. But if McDowell did indeed occasionally commit blasphemy in the golfing cathedral that is the Old Course, he redeemed himself with some shots so good they deserved total absolution.

"I thought I executed some great shots today," he said. "I can hardly think of one shot where I didn't do exactly what I wanted to do."

Perhaps the best was his second to the 17th, generally acknowledged as one of the hardest par-four holes in the world. He was nine under on the tee and hit a perfect drive to the middle of the fairway, one of the few places from which a direct shot to the green can be contemplated. He had 168 yards left, downwind, and he opted to hit an eight-iron around 150 yards and let the ball run up to the middle portion of the green which is where the flag was positioned. It was risky in that, if it was too short, he could take three putts, too long and he would be on the road.

But he played it absolutely precisely, running the ball up to 15 feet, leaving a straight and level putt which always looked in.

The birdie gave him a great chance to break the course record held by a quiz question of a golfer, the amateur Kevin McAlpine, who had a 62 during the qualifying rounds for the British Amateur championship earlier this year.

McDowell hit a good drive but his pitch finished past the pin, which was at the front of the green. That was the last place he needed to be, faced as he was then with a 10-footer, downhill and left to right, a putt which is every right-hander's nightmare. He missed.

Remarkably, all of the other Irish competitors were based over at Kingsbarns. Padraig Harrington was next best, but should have been much better. The Dubliner was five under par when he stepped onto the 17th tee. He then signed for a one-under-par 71 after finishing bogey, triple-bogey.

Paul McGinley started birdie, bogey, birdie, bogey, birdie, before finishing on level par, the same mark as Darren Clarke and Peter Lawrie. Gary Murphy was a shot further back on 73.

Vijay Singh and Ernie Els had 68s at Kingsbarns, and Els, who is trying to overtake the Fijian at the top of the rankings, said afterwards: "I am not really looking at him and I'm sure he's not really looking at me."

Singh, however, said: "Yes, I did have a peek at what Ernie had done and I'm sure he had a quick look too."

Sort that one out.