Golf / Scottish Open: Wayward Langer to the fore: Montgomerie's move weakened by final effort while Curry hedges bets

PAUL CURRY, like any good Essex man, hedged his bets. His second-round score, the first 60 in Britain, lowered the course record during the Bell's Scottish Open and only a fool would bet against somebody beating it. Curry is no fool but the first thing he did was wage pounds 200 at 50-1 that 60 would be broken. If it is, Curry wins pounds 10,000. If it isn't he loses pounds 200 but collects pounds 16,000, a roll-up bonus offered by Johnnie Walker for course records on the European Tour.

There was little danger of anybody getting near it in the third round yesterday when a fresh breeze made the Gleneagles par of 70 a more realistic target. Curry, the joint leader with the American Mark Brooks at the half-way stage at 12 under par, lost ground yesterday but remained on the leaderboard because virtually everybody else found it hard going.

An exception, at least in terms of his score, was Bernhard Langer. He shot 67 and on 196, 14 under par, holds a three-stroke lead going into the final round today.

Langer was fortunate on two counts. His driving was so erratic that he admitted his score could have been transposed into a 76; secondly Colin Montgomerie, who took over the lead at one stage yesterday, made Langer's position more comfortable with a wretched finish, dropping shots at the 17th and 18th holes.

He reacted in Garboesque fashion by refusing, initially, to come into the press tent. 'I'm too tired,' he said. Earlier in the week you could not keep him out. Faced with the prospect of a fine ('unreasonable response to a reasonable request') Montgomerie, who represents Gleneagles on the tour, had second thoughts and later agreed to unburden his soul to the Fourth Estate. Montgomerie, billed as the Scot most likely to succeed in the Scottish Open, had a bogey five on the 17th, where he hit his drive into a bush and took a penalty drop, and took three putts for a bogey six on the innocuous 18th where par is considered a dropped shot. 'I feel I threw it away over the last few holes,' he said. 'Langer doesn't lose too many leads and it's a very tall order to beat him.'

Montgomerie began to struggle from the 14th where he looked at the scoreboard and noticed that Langer had made an eagle two there to move to 14 under. 'I tried to press too hard,' Montgomerie said. 'It's about time a Scot won here. I want to win this tournament badly, almost too badly. I was looking to finish the round at 15 under.'

Had Montgomerie seen Langer's swing on the 18th he might not be so discouraged. The German, who had spent half the round blocking his tee shots to the right, snap hooked on the final tee so violently that the club flew out of his hands. He ended up playing the hole from the adjacent fairway of the Queen's course and escaped with a par five. 'I have everything I need to win any tournament but I need to put it together for four days,' he said.

Nick Faldo is four strokes off the lead following a 69. Whereas Montgomerie finished 5, 6, Faldo finished 3, 4 but his round included a double-bogey five at the eighth. He missed the green to the right, chipped 30 feet past the flag and left his putt woefully short. Faldo, though, through personal experience, is well aware of the difficulties of defending a lead in the final round.

Andrew Oldcorn, joint half-way leader in the 1991 British Open, will miss this year's championship at Muirfield next week because his entry form did not arrive on time. The Anglo-Scot's management said yesterday the form had been posted before the deadline, but discovered a fortnight later it had not been received by the R and A.

SCORES FROM THE SCOTTISH OPEN

LEADING THIRD-ROUND SCORES

(GB and Irl unless stated)

196 B Langer (Ger) 62 67 67.

199 M Lanner (Swe) 64 69 66; C Montgomerie 65 64 70; P Curry 68 60 71.

200 P O'Malley (Aus) 65 70 65; N Faldo 69 62 69.

201 P Walton 66 70 65; J Spence 65 67 69; P Senior (Aus) 66 63 72; M Brooks (US) 65 63 73.

202 C Parry (Aus) 67 69 66; M McNulty (Zimb) 68 68 66; R Davis (Aus) 70 65 67; D Waldorf (US) 66 67 69; I Woosnam 66 66 70.

203R Karlsson (Swe) 70 65 68; B Crenshaw (US) 71 64 68; J Hobday 68 65 70; S Lyle 66 65 72.

204 A Sorensen (Den) 68 70 66; D Gilford 67 70 67; R Mediate (US) 69 67 68; C Mason 69 67 68; C Rocca (It) 70 66 68; G Orr 66 67 71.

205 G Evans 67 71 67; T Johnstone (Zimb) 73 65 67; L Mize (US) 67 70 68; H Clark 69 67 69; T Weiskopf (US) 69 65 71; M A Martin (Sp) 66 67 72.

206 C Maltman 69 69 68; W Westner (SA) 69 69 68; Y Kuramoto (Jap) 69 67 70; J Quiros (Sp) 69 66 71; M Pinero (Sp) 68 67 71; V Singh (Fiji) 69 66 71; M McLean 67 67 72.

207J McHenry 68 70 69; P Fowler (Aus) 69 69 69; P Broadhurst 68 70 69; S Ballesteros (Sp) 70 68 69; H Baiocchi (SA) 72 65 70; J Rivero (Sp) 68 69 70; J Haeggman (Swe) 68 68 71; G Levenson (SA) 68 68 71; R Rafferty 68 67 72; F Nobilo (NZ) 69 65 73; J M Canizares (Sp) 67 67 73.

208 P-U Johansson (Swe) 73 65 70; J Rystrom (Swe) 69 69 70; M Sunesson (Swe) 68 70 70; A Murray 67 71 70; B Barnes 70 66 72; L Janzen (US) 69 67 72; P Baker 65 67 76.

209 T Charnley 67 71 71; S Hamill 70 68 71; I Aoki (Jap) 71 66 72; G Brand Jnr 69 67 73; E Darcy 67 68 74; V Fernandez (Arg) 69 65 75.

210 M Harwood (Aus) 69 69 72; M Roe 69 68 73

211 P Smith 68 70 73; R Lee 70 68 73.

212 B Lane 72 66 74.

213 S Field 68 69 76; A Oldcorn 70 65 78.

215 R Drummond 71 67 77.

(Photograph omitted)