George Kimballon Colombia's Camilo Villegas, who in posting the lowest round of the event so far soared up the leaderboard in a blaze of colour.

HIS CLOSING birdie binge appeared to have come to an end when Camilo Villegas's drive on the 473-yard closing hole came to rest in knee-high rough, well left of the fairway.

He was 176 yards from the pin, and the lie was not great. On the other hand, the hole was playing almost straight downwind on this blustery day, and after a brief conversation with his caddie, Gary Matthews, Villegas asked for his pitching wedge.

"That tells you how funky it is to play golf around here," said the 26-year-old Colombian in recounting the episode a few minutes later. "I mean, I was trying to bounce the ball about five yards short of the green and roll it up there."

Riding a tailwind, the ball landed short, all right, but it jumped forward a couple of times before it picked up pace and went flying across the green like a heat-seeking missile in search of the hole. Where it might have wound up had the flagstick not intervened is anybody's guess.

No, it didn't drop in the hole for an eagle. In fact, after caroming off the flagstick, the ball came to rest a good 25 feet away. Given the way Villegas was putting at that point, it might as well have been a gimme. Villegas looked at Matthews and said, "Listen, we just got a little bit lucky here, so let's take advantage of it and close the deal."

When he rolled the putt in he had made his fifth birdie in a row, and his eighth of the round. On a wind-blown day when only a handful of others - among them Pádraig Harrington - in the 154-man field could break par, Villegas carded a 65 that left him one over for the tournament and just two shot backs of the midway leader, KJ Choi.

Although Villegas is playing in his first British Open Championship, he isn't entirely a stranger to links golf, having twice crossed the pond to participate in British Amateur Championships at Hoylake and Royal County Down.

Now in his third year on the US PGA tour, he has yet to win, but has become one of the most recognisable of the new-breed golfers. His hair is fashionably long - if your sense of fashion is rooted in, say, 1975 - and the brightly coloured clothing he affects on the golf course conjures up the same era. (Watching Villegas perform in the US Open, broadcaster Johnny Miller exclaimed, "He dresses just like I used to.")

He answers, for reasons not entirely clear, to the nickname "Spider-Man". His rock-star looks have earned him a spread in GQ, and a spot on People magazine's list of "hottest eligible bachelors", while his work in the gym led Golf Digest to name him "Most Ripped Player On Tour - Tiger Woods Included."

After four years at the University of Florida (where he was a three-time All-American in addition to compiling a distinguished academic record that led to a degree in Business Administration) and four more waging the professional golf wars, Villegas speaks flawless English, even the vernacular, like his hair and clothes, somewhat rooted in the disco era. (The last player to use the word "funky" on three separate occasions in one British Open press conference was probably Johnny Miller.)

His hometown of Medellin is a raffish city widely viewed as the epicentre of the world cocaine trade, and Villegas's golfing accomplishments have given his compatriots renewed pride. (Since in 2006, Colombian national TV has included 26 PGA tour events in its weekend programming.)

Although he wasn't exempt for this year's Open, his number 51 position in the world rankings made him the first alternate, and since Kenny Perry revealed two weeks ago he would not be playing, Villegas has known he would be.

He struggled to a first-round 76 on Thursday, taking 34 putts, and looked like he might be in for more of the same yesterday when he started off bogey-bogey. Eight over for the tournament at that point, Villegas was telling himself, "Come on, just grind it out and make the cut." He righted the ship with back-to-back birdies on the third and fourth holes, and made another at the ninth. Then, following a bogey on the 499-yard 13th, he commenced the remarkable skein that saw him shave five strokes off par over the last five holes.

On Tuesday Villegas had found himself sharing a practice round with Greg Norman, in which the 53-year-old two-time Open Champion generously dispensed advice about links golf in general and the vagaries of Birkdale in particular.

"Obviously, when somebody like that tells you something, you'd better listen," said Villegas.

Whatever the Great White Shark said to him, he seems to have taken it on board.