Storming Norman rolls back the years

The 53-year-old Australian, trailed by a huge gallery that included his new wife, tennis great Chris Evert, proved his level-par 70 in the first round was no fluke by repeating the score to top the leaderboard on 140.

That left Norman, winner of The Open at Turnberry in 1986 and again at Royal St George's 15 years ago, one shot clear of young Colombian Camilo Villegas, who staged a stupendous finish to today's round with five successive birdies for a five-under-par 65.

Norman, known as golf's Great White Shark, is little more than a part-timer these days. But he has admitted he has got a new lease of life from his marriage to Evert last month.

He said: "Chrissie told me yesterday it was a day for patience. She said the same this morning.

"It was tough getting up early for a 7.47am start. We finished late last night, about six o'clock, and by the time we finished dinner it was about 10pm and by the time I had rested and wound down from the day it midnight.

"So I didn't get a whole lot of sleep. It is a tough side of the draw when you play late and again early. But I did my job and I look forward to the weekend."

Norman may change his mind about that because fears were growing that play may have to be suspended as new storms were forecast to bring more chaos to the Lancashire links.

Peter Dawson, chief executive of the R&A, warned of "big, big winds" tomorrow. "We could be talking about 40mph," he said. "We just seem to be dealing with a very changeable weather system."

Dawson's concern is for balls being blown off glass-slick greens, but already the R&A have come in for fresh criticism over the positioning of tees which yesterday meant some of the world's best players could not reach fairways with their drives.

After former major champions Sandy Lyle and Rich Beem quit during the worst of the weather yesterday, American Jerry Kelly hit out at the organisers' failure to move tees forward to take account of the weather.

Kelly compared it to the 2004 US Open, run by the United States Golf Association, when one of the greens at Shinnecock Hills turned brown in baking sun and became unplayable.

On that occasion Kelly carded an 81 and then asked: "When are they going to grow a head?"

Having shot a 13-over-par 83 here in the first round to be 151st out of 156 starters, the storm-tossed Kelly raged: "It seems they are learning from the USGA. They were trying to embarrass people." With winds gusting to 30mph, 41-year-old Kelly claimed he was unable to reach four of the par four holes in regulation two shots.

"I was really surprised because the R&A usually uses common sense," he said. "The weather was playable, but not with that set-up. Do you want to take half the field out of the championship just because you can't hit it far enough?"

But Dawson defended the course, saying: "What gets written on the Claret Jug is how many strokes, not how many under par."

Such a sentiment was unlikely to strike a chord with world No2 Phil Mickelson, Vijay Singh and former title-holder Ernie Els.

They had hoped to exploit the absence through injury of Tiger Woods but after being hit by the worst of the weather yesterday they were now facing a struggle simply to beat this evening's halfway cut.

All teed off later this afternoon, with Mickelson resuming on nine over par and Els and Singh both 10-over.