A WORLD ranking of 223rd is almost derisory for a player who has won two European Tour tournaments in the last two years—three if you count his part in the World Cup win in China last November—but Marc Warren plans to put that to rights in the next few months, writes Steve Scott, golf correspondent.

The Johnnie Walker Championship winner has been identified as the man to take the lead for the Scots as Colin Montgomerie winds down, but the reason for an apparently alarming drop down the rankings is a re-appraisal of his schedule, and yesterday’s three-under 69 in the BMW PGA Championship certainly suggests it’s not down to ability.

“I do think that my ranking’s too low, but nowadays it changes very quickly and I haven’t had the results,” said Warren yesterday. “Today was a lot more like it and the idea is not to let the scores fritter away through the weekend as happened in Italy a couple of weeks ago.”

Warren holed a bunker shot for eagle at the fourth and finished with a snaking 15-foot birdie putt at the last for his best performance in one of the big events in a while, and that was intentional as well.

“In my first two seasons I think I’ve underperformed in the top events in the middle of the season, and part of the plan this year is to turn that around,” he said.

With a clear course in front of him and the very best of the greens, Gary Orr was superbly solid and only just edged out a six-foot chance on the last which would have seen him finish with three successive birdies.

“I do feel at home here,” said Orr. “Some courses are just the ones where you always find you have the right club in your hand, and this is one of those for me.”

Andrew Coltart, usually a consistent performer at Wentworth, shot a level-par 72 as did Paul Lawrie, largely by virtue of an eagle on the 610-yard 17th.

Montgomerie recovered from an awful start—three-over after three holes—to get back to one-over, but had only a terse “nothing to report’’ after he missed birdie chances on the final two greens.