The left-hander defied the miserable conditions on Friday to hit back and card a second-round 68 however, leaving him on two over par and making the halfway cut by one shot.

That meant another early start for the world number eight, but the popular American still attracted plenty of supporters as he teed off.

And they were quickly rewarded with a typical display of attacking golf from the 33-year-old who parred the first but then fired three birdies in a row from the second.

He had played the second and third hole in 13 shots on Thursday with two double bogeys, but completed them in six shots on Friday with a birdie and an eagle, and needed just seven shots today to card two birdies.

A bogey on the fifth then halted his progress, but it was only a brief respite and another birdie on the sixth took him to one under par for the tournament.

That was still 10 shots behind leader and Open champion Ernie Els, but it was at least what Mickelson was looking for going into next week.

“Although I’m not really in the tournament I’ll have two more rounds to try and improve my position,” Mickelson had said after his second round.

“I certainly wanted two more competitive rounds going into the Open Championship.”

He will also be hoping such form is a good omen for Sandwich. He last played in the Scottish Open three years ago when he finished joint seventh behind Els after a final round of 65.

The following week he went on to finish 11th in the Open at St Andrews, surprisingly his best ever finish in the championship. Since then he has not played a warm-up event in Britain prior to The Open and finished 30th in 2001 and 66th 12 months ago at Muirfield behind Els again.

Els held a four-shot lead over Welshman Phil Price and Australian Terry Price, but was not due out until shortly before 1pm this afternoon.