Lawrie rises into contenion

Peter Lawrie carded a brilliant 62 to surge up the leaderboard early on day three at the Omega European Masters.

The Irishman, whose sole European Tour victory came at the 2008 Open de Espana, went round in eight under par to be nine under overall, three shots behind overnight leader Richie Ramsay.

Lawrie, 189th on The Race to Dubai, would have been even closer to Ramsay had he not dropped the only shot of his excellent round with a bogey at 16, a par three.

His gains all came from birdies, including three consecutively from the first and eighth holes.

Lawrie was the only early starter at the beautiful Crans-sur-Sierre Golf Club to make an impression on the upper echelons of the leaderboard. It remained to be seen whether any of the overnight frontrunners could come near to his round.

He said: “I was lucky yesterday to make the cut. I holed about a 15-footer at the last and made the cut on the mark.

“I came out this morning, tried to shoot a low number and all of a sudden holed a few putts from pretty close. The magic 59 was on with a couple of holes to play. Unfortunately I didn’t do that but 62 is a very good score.”<br />