Barclay Howard's British Open debut at the age of 44 will be crowned tomorrow when he collects the silver medal as leading amateur at Royal Troon. The Walker Cup player, who had to qualify for the championship, became the only one of the seven amateurs in the field to survive the halfway cut yesterday. Howard could not repeat the magic of his opening 70, which put him in joint sixth place, but there were more memorable moments for him as he added a 74 for a two-over-par aggregate of 144.

The Scot climbed the leaderboard still further at the start of his second round, pitching to a yard at the long fourth then making a 50-footer at the next.

But that proved his last birdie, and bogeys came at the seventh, 10th, 14th, 15th and 17th.

"I enjoyed the first 13 holes but then had a terrible three-putt at the 14th which totally unnerved me," he said.

"I was just concerned with making the cut. Then you look at Darren Clarke on 133 and think he must have taken his handicap off out there. That's incredible."