Devlin chasing dream win at US Senior Open

Chris Devlin was shocked when they cancelled Q-School last year, but he now has a chance to win a one-year Champions Tour exemption with a shock victory in the US Senior Open.

The Ballymena man (50) will forever be linked with 2010 US Open champion Graeme McDowell after forgoing some scholarship money to allow his Portrush pal to kick-start a legendary career at the University of Alabama.

The pro ranks didn’t work out as well for Devlin, who was successfully reinstated as an amateur in 2019, only to turn professional again last year as he prepared to chase his Champions Tour card.

When Q-School was axed to ensure household names got starts rather than journeymen, Devlin was left wishing he hadn’t bothered.

But after adding a two-under 68 to his opening 70 to sit just  a shot behind early halfway leader Stewart Cink on two-under at Scioto Country Club, tied with Henrik Stenson and Tommy Gainey, he’s got a second chance.

“When I qualified for the US Senior Open last year I decided to just go ahead and turn pro again,” explained Devlin, who owns a healthcare company and qualified for this week’s event through final qualifying.

“I didn't realise the PGA Tour were going to cancel the qualifying school. Had I known that, I probably would have second-guessed it.”

After hitting all 14 fairways and missing just three greens to shoot 68, he’s clearly got the game to give the likes of Cink and defending champion Pádraig Harrington a contest.

The Dubliner, 55 next month, is playing the fourth of eight consecutive events, but fellow Open champion Zach Johnson, who was just two shots behind early halfway leader Jackson Suber in the John Deere Classic, won’t be at Royal Birkdale later this month.

“I can’t play four weeks in a row,” Johnson said after carding a first-round 64 he followed with a 70.

At the BMW International Open in Munich, South Africa’s Hennie Du Plessis shot 69 to lead by a shot on 11-under at halfway, while Dane Hamish Brown heads the field by two strokes at nine-under in the Le Vaudreuil Golf Challenge in Normandy.

Ronan Mullarney (three-under), Liam Nolan (one-under) and Conor Purcell (even) were the only Irishmen to make the cut.

Anna Foster was the lone Irish qualifier in the Hulencourt Women’s Open in Belgium, carding a three-under 69 to head into the weekend tied for third on four-under, five shots behind Spain’s Carolina Chacarra.