For 17 holes yesterday Gary Orr played brilliantly and was blessed with the best of luck. He was nine under par for his round, 14 under for the tournament and playing the best golf of his life.

Then, suddenly, both form and luck seemed to desert him. His teeshot to his last hole, the ninth, flew miles right into the trees and came to rest near the base of one of them. The trunk blocked his direct route to the green and Orr realised that in order to get anywhere near the pin he was going to have to manufacture something.

But what? Orr could not work out whether to try to fade it, or draw it round the tree; it was either/Orr, and it occurred to him that he could ruin his round in the next few moments, with a bogey being a definite possibility.

As he said afterwards: "If Victor Chandler (the sponsor) had been standing there at that moment I'd have asked him for at least 500 to 1 about getting a birdie - and I still wouldn't have had a bet."

Which, as it happens, would have left Orr the poorer. The Scot decided on a cut shot. Although he had only 130 yards to the pin, he pulled out a three-iron and, in his words, "squirted it" under the branches of the tree, over the intervening rough, between the bunkers and not just on to the green but so close to the pin that it hit the hole.

The birdie was a formality and Orr's 62 broke the course record, previously held by Peter Baker and Ian Woosnam, by one shot. His 15-under-par total of 129 gave him the outright lead over Mark McNulty, Colin Montgomerie and Per-Ulrik Johansson.

In many ways that ninth hole summed up Orr's round.

"Everything I attempted came off," he said. "I played well, but I also made the most of it."

He pointed out that, although he was partially blocked by the tree, he could have been completely blocked, in which case a birdie would have been all but impossible and a par extremely difficult.

"I think you need a bit of luck," he said. "The right thing to happen at the right time." Orr referred to this year's Portuguese Open which brought his first win in his eighth year on tour. "Sometimes it's just down to one putt. I eagled the last to win that tournament," he said.

"At the Volvo PGA, Monty birdied the last to beat me, and Lee Westwood holed a long putt at the last at the Dutch Open to beat me, so I'd been close a few times."

Philip Walton was best of the Irish after a 69 left him on five under par. Richie Coughlan, who had opened with a poor 75, responded with a superb 66 to finish on three under, along with Des Smyth, to make the cut by a shot.

But Eamonn Darcy, Gary Murphy and Paul McGinley have the weekend off.

Montgomerie, who had two bogeys in his last three holes for 69, was philosophical. "Couple of mistakes at the end," he said. "Never mind. Got it back with a birdie at the last. Not to worry."