Golf:Sweden's Peter Hanson leads the Czech Open by four shots with a round to go and victory for the 32-year-old in Celadna tomorrow will knock Paul Casey out of a Ryder Cup qualifying place with a week to go.
To add to Casey’s problems, England’s Simon Dyson has moved into joint second place and he too can oust him from the all-important top nine with a win.
It is pretty much the nightmare scenario for Casey, Pádraig Harrington, Justin Rose and Luke Donald.
Controversially, not one of them has entered for next week’s race-ending Johnnie Walker Championship at Gleneagles, preferring instead the FedEx Cup play-offs in the United States.
That event carries huge money incentives, but not a single cup point and if Casey does drop out of an automatic qualifying spot the quartet will all be left hoping for a Ryder Cup wild card - and captain Colin Montgomerie has only three.
Montgomerie could even decide to omit more than one of them. Italian Edoardo Molinari, whose brother and World Cup-winning partner Francesco is close to securing a debut, is currently outside the top nine as well.
Hanson, given an invite to the Czech Open only on Monday, was joint halfway leader with compatriot Fredrik Widmark, led by two after a birdie on the fourth, but then was caught by both Dyson and Spain’s Miguel Angel Jimenez early on the back nine.
His response was brilliant. Birdies came on the 13th, 14th, 16th and the 453-yard last — a hole where Australian Tim Stewart had earlier taken 11 — for a four-under-par 68 and 12-under total of 204.
The Irish challenge was this morning led by Peter Lawrie on five under, with Shane Lowry a shot behind, but pair dropped off the pace with a 74 and 77 respectively to drop back to four under and level par.
Michael Hoey also went backwards by one shot to one under, while Damien McGrane improved to one over with a 71.
Gary Murphy signed for an 85to plummet to 15 over after a nightmare 11 at the par-three 15th.