Marc Warren is determined to spoil the expected victory celebrations of either Masters Champion Danny Willett and tournament host Rory McIlroy after storming to a share of the lead heading to the weekend at the Dubai Duty Free Irish Open.
Warren posted his best round in six months, a sizzling six-under par 66, to be tied on eight under par with Willett at the K. Club in Co. Kildare.
Warren capped his round by ending with a pair of birdies, including only managing to just clear the water guarding the green at his penultimate hole before chipping-in and set up a Saturday showdown with Willett.
Marc Warren with his biggest fan and young son, Achie.
Willett had moved to nine under par with birdies at his 13th and 14th but gave a shot back in bogeying his 16th.
Just a shot behind is tournament host McIlroy who added a round of 70 to move to seven under par and two shots clear of England’s Matthew Southgate (69).
And while McIlroy is desperate to win for a first time this year, he was full of praise for the Scot.McIlroy said: “I haven’t played much with Marc in recent years, but I played a few times with him when I was more on the European Tour.
“Marc’s a great player and his 66 today is a great score. I’ve always thought he is one of the players to look at, and he’s won at least a couple of times on Tour.
“He swings it so well that you are maybe surprised he hasn’t won more.”
And PGA Tour based Scot muscled his way back into the £STG 3.09m event matching Warren’s best score of the day, a 66 and move inside the top-10 at three under par thanks to a ‘borrowed’ driver.
Knox cracked the face of his WGC – HSBC Champions driver of day one but thanks to fellow Jacksonville resident David Lingmerth the Scot borrowed one of the Swede’s back-up drivers.
Warren’s effort is now only the second occasion in 10 events this year the Scot has managed to play all four rounds for a second event in succession after arriving in Ireland having missed six of nine cuts this year.
Also Warren is yet to record a top-10 finish since being fourth in last July’s Aberdeen Asset Management Scottish Open.
He said: “I’ve felt, especially in my last three events, one in Spain and then the two in China, I was close to some decent form.
“But the schedule this year feels as if it’s been stop and start a lot.
“I’m not top-50 in the world and as such I’ve not got into the events in America to fill in some downtime we have on the European Tour. So I do feel more rusty than anything else.
“And when I have played the cuts I’ve made haven’t been that great and the cuts I’ve missed haven’t been too bad.
“You’re going to go through spells like that over the course of a season or over the course of two or three seasons, so it’s just a matter of trying to stay patient as you possibly can.”
In fact, Warren teed up on the 2006 Ryder Cup course currently ranked 132nd in the world compared to 15 months ago when he climbed to a career high of World No. 48.
He said: “It’s been a pretty frustrating start to the year results-wise as you are going to trying to focus on doing the right things as much as you can and keep the expectations low and focus really on what you can control as opposed to what’s out of your control like finishes and positions.”
There’s one thing Warren has on both Willett and McIlroy and that’s having already tasted pro career success on the Emerald Isle in capturing the 2005 secondary Challenge Tour Ryder Cup Challenge at Killarney.
