John Parry’s Vauxhall Astra doesn’t quite match up to some of the gleaming specimens in the players’ car park at St Andrews, but the 23-year-old Englishman could be trading up to a Rolls Royce with change to pay for a chauffeur if he maintains his commanding lead in the Alfred Dunhill Links Championship.
Parry took his maiden European Tour title at the Vivendi Trophy two weeks ago and treated himself to his first new car with a small part of the £107,000 first prize for that event, which went a bit under the radar with the Ryder Cup looming the week after.
Winning at St Andrews, with a £500,000 cheque, would be a different thing entirely for another winning graduate from the 2007 Walker Cup at Royal County Down.
Friday’s 65 in damp and misty conditions on the Old Course, far removed from the Thursday’s autumnal sunshine, left him four ahead going into the weekend in front of Sweden’s Martin Erlandsson, with Ryder Cup stars Ross Fisher and Martin Kaymer loitering ominously five shots back, and Padraig Harrington, Graeme McDowell and defending champion Simon Dyson among those not too far away.
Parry only passed his test a few weeks ago and treated himself to his first car, but it doesn’t quite cut the mustard entering a car park packed with Porsches, Aston Martins and monster SUVs.
“It looks all right. I’d have got a nicer one but I only passed my test and the insurance companies don’t like me very much,” he said.
However, just having a car is a raise for Parry, who this time last year was in the third division of professional golf in the EuroPro Tour, without many prospects of advancement, while his contemporaries on the Walker Cup GB&I team-Rhys Davies, Danny Willett, David Horsey and Rory McIlroy were all in the big time.
Two of the US team at County Down, Dustin Johnson and Rickie Fowler, weren’t doing too badly either.
“I had no card or any sort of ranking,” Parry said.
“It’s not a great feeling, when you see the other guys on the European Tour and Challenge Tour knowing you were on the same team six months earlier. In the end it was a good thing to push me on and improve my game.”
He won his playing rights at the tour school and two early top tens got him a few more starts than qualifiers by that route, but it wasn’t until his run of five cuts made culminated in the victory in France that the breakthrough was made.
“I always knew I had the game, but you need the confidence to know that you can win out here and compete,” he said, after the run of five birdies on the first six holes of the Old Course having started at the 10th moved him into his commanding lead.
It wasn’t quite as treacherous on the Old Course as it had been on Open Championship Friday in July but it was enough to haul in many of the field, with overnight leader Martin Laird sliding back with a 75, but the real carnage predictably took place at Carnoustie, where Erlandsson’s 68 was the only round under 70.
The Swede has had a desperate season with only eight cuts made in 25 starts, but found some surprising succour in the brutally tough conditions.
“I just really happy to get going again after struggling so much, and want to try and keep it going,” he said.
“It’s just about enjoying the game more. I don’t know what’ll happen on the weekend but at least golf is fun again.”
Behind the two surprise leaders lie a number of big names, with Fisher, who lost a play-off to Robert Karlsson here a couple of years ago, looking good after an excellent 68 and Kaymer, who also lost out in that three-way play-off, naggingly consistent with a 69 as he seeks to win his third event in a row.
McDowell’s 68 was good work as was Harrington’s, the Irishman having to steel himself to come down the tough final stretch of the Old Course with a brutal crosswind beckoning balls to the out-of-bounds wall.
“I stood on the 13th tee and JP (McManus, his pro-am partner) asked if I’d take five-under, total, on finishing, and I said I’d take it, his fingers and probably his arms as well,” said the major champion.
“Golf courses this long aren’t made to be played in this temperature.”
Lee Westwood soldiered on with his injured calf, shooting a par 72 to stay two-under, but indicating pretty clearly that he will shut it down for at least a while, if not the rest of the season, once his duties are complete here.
Rory McIlroy didn’t repeat his Friday 80 from July, but the 74 left him one-over for the championship and off the pace, although he did lighten a drab day with the flashiest of flop shots from the fringe in front of the wall at the 17th, nearly holing it.
“It was one of those shots where you end up on the first green or that close, either shot of the month or worst of the month,” he said.
“It wasn’t my only option but I thought, may as well. Would I try it in an Open? Probably not.”