Lyle in good shape at Gleneagles
Sandy Lyle was hoping for more of the same, from both the weather and his game, on day two of the Scottish PGA Championship at Gleneagles.
Not for the first time this year, Lyle was high on the leaderboard at the end of the opening day after carding a four-under-par 68 on the Centenary course in glorious sunshine.
Lyle has failed to turn good starts into too many good results, however, and lies 123rd in the Order of Merit with only one top-10 finish so far.
With his exemption from the top 40 on the career money list under threat and no US Tour card, he will have to finish in the top 115 on the Order of Merit to earn a European Tour card for next season.
That would mean earning over £100,000 (€156,000) and the 44-year-old is currently £22,000 (€34,500) adrift, although a top-10 finish on Sunday would go a long way towards securing his future for next season.
"I've not really played weekends very well so I tend to think of Thursday as a day when everything went pretty good," said Lyle.
"But if conditions get tricky out there I don't know how I'm going to perform. It is a brutal golf course in places out there, if you don't get your tee shots away you are a dead duck.
"If we get tricky conditions in the next few days there will be some balls spraying around and it is definitely a factor in your confidence knowing that one errant shot, and it doesn't need to be too errant, can get very messy."
Australian Richard Green holds a one-shot lead going into the second round, Fredrik Andersson was one shot back with Lyle among the 23 players within three shots of the lead.
