The Open: Norman Invasion at Top of Leaderboard

Former champion Greg Norman continued to roll back the years in the second round of the 137th Open Championship at Royal Birkdale today. Norman, the winner at Turnberry in 1986 and Sandwich in 1993 but now playing more tennis than golf after marrying Chris Evert at the end of last month, carded an opening 70 to lie just one shot off the lead shared by Graeme McDowell, Rocco Mediate and Robert Allenby.

The 53-year-old, who feels marrying Evert has "revitalized" his life, had pledged to keep his expectations "realistically low" but soon found himself alone in red figures and top of the leaderboard despite slightly easier conditions than those which sent early scores soaring yesterday.

Norman rolled in a long birdie putt on the first and parred the second to improve to one under par, and that was good enough to lead with Mediate and McDowell dropping a shot each and Allenby opening with two straight bogeys.

Best golf of the day so far was coming from Jean Van de Velde, the Frenchman who famously blew a three-shot lead on the final hole of the 1999 Open at Carnoustie, going on to lose in a play-off with Paul Lawrie and Justin Leonard. The 42-year-old missed the cut on his last two appearances at the Open in 2001 and 2005, and needed a birdie on the last hole of final qualifying at Hillside to make it to Birkdale. But birdies on the first and seventh took him out in 32, the best of the week so far, and into a share of sixth place on one over par.