Meanwhile, the miserable season being suffered by English golfer Malcolm Mackenzie continued today when he was penalised four strokes.

Mackenzie, who lies 242nd on this year’s European Order of Merit after missing seven of his last eight halfway cuts, discovered coming off the fourth green of his second round that he had 15 clubs in his bag instead of the permitted 14.

It was the same breach of the rules that ruined Ian Woosnam’s hopes in the 2001 Open championship at Lytham.

Woosnam, joint leader at the time, was punished only two shots because it was on the second tee that his caddie told him of his blunder in allowing two drivers into the bag, but Mackenzie suffered the maximum four-stroke penalty because he had completed two holes.

The 43-year-old from Sheffield, playing on a medical extension this season after undergoing surgery on his shoulder, spotted he had an extra wedge and handed it to a referee on the fifth tee.

It meant, however, that his opening bogey five became a triple bogey seven and his par on the second was a double bogey five and he dropped from four over par to eight over – and almost certainly another early exit.