I was at the ISM house for breakfast at 6.45 after our driver Eddie came and picked me up. I was lucky.He’d been up much earlier. Apparently the colleague he has been sharing a house in Deal with had had a prolonged nightmare that did not end until half the town had been woken by his screams. Mine were just about to start after another bout of stretching exercises with Newt the Beaut. I arrived on the range full of hope and expectation, but I could not find any rhythm and hit the ball particularly poorly. The omens were not good before I went out to shake hands with my playing partner Mike Weir. The Masters champion is a true gent both on and off the course, but neither of us sparked the other and we both had to settle for a pair of unsatisfactory level par 71’s. I’m probably a little bit too far back at eight over to be involved in the shake up tomorrow, but I’ll be looking to shoot low tomorrow and finish in a reasonable position inside the top 20.