Scottish PGA championship reaches halfway stage

TAXI? NO, ITS DAVID ORR DRIVING
CLEAR OF THE GLENEAGLES FIELD

East Renfrewshire tour pro David Orr, who doubles up as a Glasgow taxi driver, is a couple of steady rounds away from his biggest win for four years.
He leads the Gleneagles Scottish PGA championship by three strokes at the halfway stage after a second day in which he posted the clubhouse target of six-under-par 140 before noon – and his name was still clear at the top of the leaderboard at the end of play, just before 8pm.
Orr was a shade lucky in that his 7am starting time gave him the best scoring conditions of the day. Although there was the odd sub-par score later to confound the theory, a freshening wind made it a lot tougher for the second half of the field.
Orr, at the late age of 33 is undergoing PGA training with his club pro, Stewart Russell, which is enabling his Tartan Tour scores to count for Order of Merit points this season for the first time.
He has had rounds of 71 and 69, classy scoring over a PGA Centenary Course which will host the Ryder Cup match in 2014 and is a bit of a mini-monster for the Scottish pros at more than 7,100yd with a par of 73 and long rough bordering on the fairways.
So what about his taxi driving second job?
“I’m employed to drive private hire car, so I’m not going touting for business. And I have a very flexible arrangement. I fit the golf between early morning calls, sometimes 4am, and evening shifts up to 11pm,” said 33-year-old Orr, winner of the British assistants golf title in 2002 and the PGA EuroPro Tour championship on the Algarve the following year.
“I’ve not been making much off the golf for the past six weeks so the money I make from the taxi shifts comes in very handy. Rona and I have a wee boy James, who is two, and another one on the way so it’s all about making ends meet.
“I used to spend a lot of time practising but I’ve found nowadays that I can keep my golf game in good nick without spending hours on the range.”
Orr is actually nine under par for the last 27 holes he has played in the £50,000 Gleneagles event.
“I took a while to get warmed up over the opening nine on Thursday but my run of good form started with the back nine and I’ve kept it going in the second round.
“There’s no question that you have to drive it straight to score over this course. I got a new Wilson Staff driver from the factory at Irvine earlier this week and it’s working well for me. I average about 290yd off the tee but it’s accuracy not distance that is so important over the Centenary Course.”
Orr birdied the first, second, eighth, 14th, 15th and 18th , dropping shots only with bunker visits at the 13th and 17th.,
Cowglen’s Mark Loftus, 28-year-old, one-time Walker Cup reserve, was another to benefit for a morning starting time. He got nearest to Orr with a 70 for 143, which included one of the strongest finishes of the day: 4-3-4 against the par of 5-3-5.
Two former Northern Open champions, Colin Gillies (Kingsfield) and Jason McCreadie (Buchanan Castle), are bracketed with Hayston’s Stephen Gray and Craig Lee (All Swing Golf Centre) on 144..
Gillies, the all-time money-winner in PGA Scottish Region Events by a long way with £428,035, is resigned to having a back problem for the rest of his life.
“The basic problem is that I have a long back and relatively short legs. Every so often that means trouble at the base of the spine. Before this tournament, I had not played since Friday, July 13 when it seized up again,” said Gillies.
“If this event had been last week, I wouldn’t have been fit enough to play. As it was I almost pulled out on the eve of the tournament because I still felt only 50-50.”
A third past Northern Open winner, Chris Doak had the joint best round (with Orr and Edzell’s Alastair Webster) of a dull, sometimes wet day – a 69 for 145, to be five shots behind leader Orr.
As David Huish used to say in days gone by, “This tournament is not over yet. I feel I’m back in the saddle with a 69. Can I still win? Most definitely,” said Doak.
Overnight leader Graeme McInnes (Murcar Links) went from the sublime (an opening round of 69) to the ridiculous, a error-strewn, birdie-less round of 83 for a tally of 152.
McInnes was not alone in his struggle against the course and the conditions.
Late starter defending champion Dean Robertson (Mearns Academy) also saw his title chance this weekend all but disappear with a 77 for 150.
His playing partners suffered too. Northern Open champion Murray Urquhart (Inverness) had a 79 for 152 and Paul McKechnie (Braid Hills), one shot off the pace at the start of the day, dropped well back with a 79 and 149.
Players with totals of eight-over-par 154 and better survived the halfway cut.