Maybe it's his Scottish ancestry, maybe it's his strong sense of creativity, but Mike Weir always has known he should thrive on links golf. It just never manifested itself at the British Open.

Now, however, at his sixth Open Championship, Weir seems to have solved the mystery that has previously eluded him.

Weir has translated imagination and touch into two of his best Open rounds and that puts him right in the thick of contention after 36 holes at Royal Troon.

Weir rattled off one of the better rounds yesterday, a 68, and now sits at three-under-par. There are still nine players ahead of him on the leaderboard, but an argument can be made that Weir has played as well as any of them, even the leader, Skip Kendall.

Weir has fashioned his score of 139 having had the worst of the weather on both of the first two days. He played late Thursday and early yesterday and got hefty winds both days.

The wind laid down in both rounds for players who drew early times Thursday and late starts yesterday and that includes most of those on the leaderboard.

Weir always has had an affinity for the Open Championship. He first came to Scotland in 1999, taking a chance on qualifying. He made the field that year, took a licking and loved the rugged challenge of Carnoustie. He has been exempt every other year but has never been able to achieve a decent result until this year.

LEARNED

"I think what I've learned is how to play shots in different ways over here," Weir said yesterday. "I noticed (yesterday) I was hitting 5-iron where my playing partners were hitting 8-iron. I was playing shots and keeping the ball down and using my imagination a little more than I did four or five years ago.

"I would say, yeah, I play more by feel. I almost eyeball a lot of yardages. I have a game with my caddie where I try to tell him my yardage before he tells me the actual number, just to kind of fine-tune my feel."

He's also living a relaxed existence this week. Weir, caddie Brennan Little and a couple of associates spent a week touring and playing various links courses and now are ensconced in a house facing Troon's South Beach, just a few steps from the golf course.

If they get bored indoors, Weir and Little grab some clubs and hit golf shots on the beach. Having missed out on a chance to wager on himself in the Open at 50-to-1 at the local bet shops, Weir is settling for the challenge of beating his caddie at beach golf for a small, but intensely competitive, side wager.

Yesterday at Troon, Weir was in the fifth group off the first tee, just past 7 a.m., but he did not get the break in the wind he was hoping for. It was blowing steadily at 25 km/h, even before sun-up and did not relent until several hours after he finished.

He laboured along early, making four solid pars, then made his move with three birdies in a row.

At the par-3 fifth, Weir hit a 210-yard 6-iron that settled three feet from the pin. At the 601-yard par-5 sixth, he laid up in the fairway and hit his wedge to four feet, then made the putt for a second birdie. At the par-4 seventh, he made his third consecutive birdie by pouring in a 15-foot putt.

At the ninth, Weir made his only bogey of the day, missing a four-foot putt for par. On the back nine, playing smart, strategic golf, he made a series of uneventful pars, then made birdie at the 542-yard par-5 15th. He followed that with two more pars on the treacherous home holes.

PRECISION

"My game is kind of a precision game," he said. "I'm not a power player. I need to plot my way around the golf course and I did that well (yesterday). I hit most of the greens and made a couple of putts. Three of my four birds were from inside five feet and the other was a 15-footer. (It was) a good, solid day all around."

Weir's approach has paid off. Going into the weekend, he feels refreshed, not strung out by constant grinding.

"For the most part, I've been in control, keeping the ball down, hitting on the lines that I want to," Weir said. "I've been playing smart golf and hitting most of the greens. It does feel a little less stressful. I'm not scrambling for pars on a lot of holes. If I can just warm the putter up a little more, I'll be in good shape."

Weir talked fondly of his grandfather yesterday, a first generation Canadian whose father, Mike's great-grandfather, had been born and raised in Scotland.

"My grandfather, Alex Weir, was a golfer who actually had his first (and only) hole-in-one when he was 87 years old," Weir said. "He carried his own bag until the day he died and we used to have to hustle to catch up with him. He was a great man."

Maybe it's in the genes.