Nicolas Colsaerts relied on local knowledge as he shot a stunning 65 at Carnoustie to share the lead with Cameron John after the second round of the 2024 Alfred Dunhill Links Championship.
Related: Darren Fichardt matches career-low at at Dunhill Links
The Belgian kicked off his campaign with a 65 at the Old Course at St Andrews on Thursday and recorded the same score at the notoriously tricky Carnoustie on day two to reach 14 under par and put himself in position to seal a fourth DP World Tour title and his first since 2019.
The 2012 Ryder Cup star, who has mixed golf and commentary work this season, has been coming to this event for 20 years, and felt his experience of Carnoustie paid dividends as he shot eight birdies and a single bogey, including gains at the difficult ninth and 17th.
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Australian John followed up his opening 62 at Kingsbarns with a 68 on the Old Course, grabbing a share of the lead with his brilliant birdie at the 17th.
John, who sits 1007th on the Official World Golf Ranking, sandwiched a disappointing double bogey at the fifth between birdies on the fourth and sixth before closing the front nine with a 25-foot birdie from off the ninth green.
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A ten-foot birdie at the tenth took him to within a shot of the lead before a close-range gain on the 12th saw him join overnight leader Darren Fichardt at the top. A series of pars followed before he holed from 22 feet at the 17th to get to 14 under and share the lead with Colsaerts.
Home favourite David Law and first-round leader Fichardt were in a tie for third a shot further back, one ahead of the four-strong group on 12 under.
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England’s Tommy Fleetwood and Tyrrell Hatton emerged as the leading pair from Kingsbarns, getting to 11 under par after rounds of 65 and 68 respectively, to sit alongside Tom Vaillant of France and Welshman James Ashfield, who is making his professional debut this week.
Player quotes
Nicolas Colsaerts: I’ve been playing pretty well since yesterday. St Andrews, I really plotted my way around. But here, it requires a little bit more local knowledge. Having played in this definitely helps.
Didn’t really get off to the best of starts. I was more agitated and I didn’t hit the shots that I wanted. Then I started to get on a roll and birdied 9, which is not a hole that you birdie usually, and then went a couple on the spin, which was great, and kept it going. Birdied 17 which is also a hole you don’t really birdie at Carnoustie. So yeah, it all fit together.
It’s normally a lot harder than this. And the light’s great. A couple of times during the last couple of days, you had that nice light that’s coming in. It’s been great. And you know, like I said, having played this tournament over and over over the years, this definitely helps manoeuvring the trouble.
Usually want to get Carnoustie out of the way quickly because it’s probably the toughest one. The stage I’m at, the way I see this profession and my career, I’ll just take any rotation to be honest with you. I’m just happy to be here.
Cameron John: It’s just fun (links golf). You don’t get it a lot back home, the odd course that plays similar but nothing quite the same. And that’s kind of the outlook of the week, just enjoy it, take it all in, walking up 18, it’s always pretty special, so just remember it.
I think wind-wise we have been lucky the last couple of days, it was a little trickier today for sure but definitely the wind down at the National (in Australia) gets pretty crazy.
You have to use a lot of the undulating slopes. There’s massive sort of run-offs, and you look at the 18th, for example, here, you hit it short and it comes back, and you feel like you’re 10 metres under the flag. You get that at the National as well.
I’ve only been out there (Carnoustie) the once and I think that was Tuesday. It was awesome and I mean, I played it into a Northerly, so those last few holes were quite tricky. It’s going to be kind of opposite (tomorrow). So it will be a little bit like learning it all over again.
