Clay Walker, whose name has never until now impinged upon the golfing public's consciousness, played a round in a million in the Dunhill Links Pro-Am at St Andrews yesterday. Ernie Els battled blustery conditions at Carnoustie to shoot 65 and earn a share of the individual lead with fellow South African Omar Sandys, but it was Walker who stole the show.

The country and western singer from Houston, Texas, improved his professional's score by no fewer than 12 shots.

He and Steve Elkington had a team score of 13-under par, 59 with the Australian professional returning a one-under 71, and not surprisingly the team leads the pro-am section of the tournament.

Walker's contribution, which contained three net eagles, was astonishing, and for more than one reason.

On Wednesday, the championship committee of this event decided Walker was better than his handicap certificate stated, and cut him from 11 to seven.

But they failed to tell him or the administrators who write the details on the score cards, and Walker began believing he was an 11-handicap player. Then, on the seventh, the official marker for the group was radioed with the information that Walker was to play off seven - an extraordinary move.

But Walker appears to have ignored the information and so when he handed in a card showing those net eagles at holes where the championship committee said he got no stroke, uproar broke out.

The committee decided his contribution for yesterday would stand but for the remainder of the tournament he'd play off seven.

Walker's round was statistically one in a million. Dean Knuth, a former statistician with the United States Golf Association has worked out that the odds of beating your handicap by three shots are 200 to 1; to beat it by five shots is 500 to 1 and to beat it by 10 is 1,000,000 to 1.