GOLF/Irish Open: On occasions, players who spend hour upon hour on the range in the search for perfection are required to seek some kind of divine intervention from the golfing gods. As such, the links at Baltray - hard by the mouth of the River Boyne, where St Patrick first landed in the 5th Century on his mission to introduce Christianity into Ireland - will, perhaps, give inspiration to those in pursuit of leader Peter Lonard, who yesterday assumed the midway lead of the Nissan Irish Open.
Indeed, given the birdie-eagle start to his second round, it seemed that some of Lonard's own prayers had been answered. However, on a day when the wind switched around, and made the par three holes particularly testing, the Australian's fast start didn't lead to him racing away from the field. By day's end, Lonard, who followed up his opening round 64 with a 70 for 10-under-par 134, held a two-stroke advantage over South African James Kingston and Stephen Gallacher, of Scotland.
When the dust had settled on the day's play, the cut fell on level par 144 with 73 players surviving into the weekend. Of them, nine were Irish - a sizeable enough contingent - with Padraig Harrington and Peter Lawrie, on four-under, to the fore.
Yet, as Darren Clarke, some seven shots behind the leader, remarked, "I can't seem to get a score going . . . but I've had good weekends before, and I need another one now."
He knows that if the putts start to drop, it's possible to make a charge on this links.
And that applies to everyone.
That much was evident yesterday, most dramatically demonstrated by Kingston. For the second day running, the Springbok - who cut his teeth on the Sunshine Tour and the Asian Tour before moving to the European stage last season - put together a run of five successive birdies from the second hole to the sixth.
"I must have a love affair with those few holes," he quipped, adding: "I hope they serve me well over the next two days."
There was other evidence that the course could yield birdies and eagles to someone on a charge. For instance, Gary Evans turned around his fortunes completely by tagging on a 66 to his opening round 77, an improvement of 11 shots.
Unfortunately for Simon Wakefield, he went the other way, adding on a second round 80 to his opening 66 to fall from tied-third to tied-89th, missing the cut by two. So, the Baltray links can bite too.
"You've got to scramble well, especially on the par threes the way they're set up. Sometimes, missing the green in the right spot is all you can do," said Graeme McDowell, who resurrected his hopes with a 69 for 142, adding: "I'm right in the tournament but I need another low round . . . but I feel I have one in me. Everyone here can go low, but I've had a couple in the last couple of months and I'll certainly be digging in and looking for a low one, there's no doubt about that."
For Lawrie, it was a case of fighting for all he could get. "I hung in there," he conceded, after a 73 for 140. "All in all, I played okay and holed some nice putts."
Typical of Lawrie's survival instincts was his play of the 18th, where he drove into a bunker, then opted to play out sideways onto a spectator pathway, before hitting a three-wood approach short of the green and pitching and putting for his par.
"Sometimes, those putts are as important as birdies," claimed Lawrie.
The other Irish to qualify were David Higgins, Damien McGrane, John Dwyer, Paul McGinley and Gary Murphy - albeit with much ground to make up. Still, there's strength in numbers and, with no Irish winner since John O'Leary in 1982, the hope would be that at least one can emerge from the pack to contend over the weekend.
For Lonard, though, the hard part has yet to come.
Although he has been a tour professional for 15 years, and has won six tournaments in his homeland, including the Australian Open, he has yet to win on the European Tour. Still, since establishing himself on the US Tour, where he's mainly based these days, he has discovered a different lifestyle.
In his time living in England, his work involved pitching up at a local course - "I wasn't a member of any, so I never overstayed my welcome," he remarked - and hitting some balls before moving on to the pub. In America, it's a different world.
"I get up in the morning about 8 a.m., go to the gym, hit balls from 11 to one, jump in the pool, then do some chipping and putting, go to the pool, get something to eat and then play nine holes in the cart."
Whatever about the different lifestyle, Lonard - now ranked 46th in the world rankings - has benefited from playing on the US Tour, but retains his European Tour membership too and last season finished 18th on the Order of Merit from only 11 tournaments.
In last year's Irish Open at Portmarnock, he finished tied-seventh - "I had a chance to win until the last few holes," he recalled - and he would love to take a first European Tour title here.
