The Open 2015: David Lingmerth almost creates golf history at St Andrews

Former UAB golfer Paul Dunne is preparing for a second run at The Open Championship.

The Aberdonian is big on Twitter and was on there during a ten-and-a-half hour weather delay that will see the 144th Open Championship become only the second in the event’s history to finish on a Monday.

Jordan Spieth, victor of the Masters and US Open this year, is one stroke further back, while Padraig Harrington, a two-time Open victor, is on 10 under par after a 65. “Yeah”, said Dunne, deadpan, “I haven’t hit it in one yet”. “Give us a break. There’s an unbelievable amount of world-class players playing this week so I’m not even thinking about Sunday as of yet”, explained Lawrie. But that was a particularly poor article in my opinion.

“Getting upset about it or getting frustrated about the weather is going to cost you shots”.

He has not shot worse than 71 in his last 11 rounds on the Old Course and is a combined 48 under par for the historic links in that time.

Lawrie, the 1999 champion, began the day in a share of third place but dropped down to a tie for 26th after a two-over par round of 74. I couldn’t control what the ball was doing on the greens there.

“I expect when he stands on the tee it’s going to be up there miles and down the fairway”.

But then it all started to go wrong.

The question is, can he live with the likes of Johnson and Jordan Spieth for three more days?

The 22-year-old birdied the last to the delight of a large contingent from his hometown Greystones Golf Club to reach halfway as the leading amateur and with his sights set on following Rory McIlroy in 2007 as the most recent Irish victor of the prestigious prize.

He added: ” It would be nice to get the silver medal, my previous year as an amateur. But it’s not something he was dwelling on, that’s for sure.

Lawrie said it all felt so easy on Thursday as he rolled in seven birdies in the first 13 holes to briefly take the lead.

Dunne secured birdies at the ninth, 14th and 15th holes to move to six-under for the championship, only to suffer his first bogey in 23 holes, going back to the 11th in the first round, when dropping a shot on the 16th.

“Obviously it was quite calmish this morning, so it’s important to take advantage of those conditions if you can”, he told europeantour.com.

“Nothing bad happened at Chambers Bay, so I wasn’t disappointed, really”, the 31-year-old said.

As the day wore on, the rain stayed away, and the wind shifted and shimmied, at times blowing hard gusts and then softening to a mild-to-strong breeze, and gusting again. “It has been a tough and frustrating day for everyone”, admitted Dawson.

‘It’s always really cool to play golf in Scotland in front of the best fans in the world.