Garcia graduates with fighting spirit

At 2.07 yesterday afternoon, Sergio Garcia crouched over his four-foor putt for a par on the tricky par-three seventh. Then the rain came, a big gust of the wet stuff hitting Garcia on the face making his putt swerve away.

With it went the young Spaniard who turned his back on the hole, tapping his head with the shaft of his putter. This was the make-or-break moment for the 22-year-old at these championships.

In the past, Garcia has found only Tiger Woods or his own temperament blocking the path to major glory. With the wind and rain lashing off the Firth of Forth this was a test on the older and wiser Garcia of whether he would fight or fold. He did the former, emphatically, posting a 71, a level-par round that in the conditions he played them was verging on the incredible.

As others floundered, Garcia's name leapfrogged up the leaderboard and by this morning he found himself right in contention. The word around the course was that thiswould at last be Garcia's graduation year.

No one could have blamed him, however, if he had fallen away on a back nine which was at its fiercest when he played it. Bad weather and the Open have combined in the past to make the sorest of subjects in the Garcia household and the pictures of the 19-year-old Sergio being consoled by his mother, Consuelo, after a round in the 80s in the Armageddon-like conditions of Carnoustie in 1999 is still the enduring image of this remarkable young man's career.

That set him back at least a year as he struggled to contain the impetuosity of youth and harness his passion to use it to his own advantage. The boy just out of his teens found himself in all sorts of trouble, throwing shoes at rules officials and almost getting into a fist fight with an amateur in a pro-am. Only his prodigious talent kept him within sight of the straight and narrow.

Garcia saw his salvation on Stateside after he stole the limelight from Woods despite finishing second in the USPGA Championship just a month after Carnoustie. America took him to heart and after two PGA Tour victories in 2001 he won the first tournament of this year, the Mercedes Championships. Top 10 finishes in the Masters and US Open – when he was in the final group with Woods on the final day but could only finish fourth – delivered Garcia to Muirfield this year as a strongly-tipped fancy. That he won the Amateur Championship at this great East Lothian links in 1998 only lowered his odds with the bookmakers.

The first two rounds were quiet by Sergio standards. A level par 71 on the first day was noteworthy only because he came back in 32, three under par. On Friday he found his stride on the back nine again when a 33 added to his outward 36 took him to two-under par and to the fringes of the leaderboard. Garcia had barely had a mention coming into Saturday but found himself just four shots off the lead and with Ballesteros and Olazabal either missing the cut or missing in action the Spanish were looking to their young conquistador for a charge.

But Garcia now sees the big picture – the one with the rest of the field in it – and after taking that bogey on the seventh, Garcia realised that yesterday's heroes would be the ones who kept their heads out of the clouds, their balls out of the rough and their score in the red. He missed one fairway on the front nine, that bogey on the seventh, but this had already been negated with a birdie at the first.

Garcia began his round in sunlight but as he stood on the 10th tee, still at two under, the conditions could not have been any different. Two woods later and Garcia still found himself short of the 10th green. "It was a great up and down," he said. The fighting four set the tone for the rest of the round. A bogey on the par-three 13th was the smallest drama he could expect, but two ups-and-downs at the 14th and 15th kept Garcia at one under. Then, into the teeth of the wind on the 17th, Garcia made one of the great birdies. He "ripped" a driver down the centre and then cleared the bunkers standing 100 yards from the green with a three-wood. "I was so happy to see that ball get over," he said. He was even happier when he put a nine-iron in close to move back to two under and could have finished with another birdie on the last, but a sub-par total in the conditions that he played them would have been almost scandalous.

"I feel like I shot five or six under today," Garcia said. When asked if he would rather be in the clubhouse on two under or out on the course at four under he said: "I would rather be in here in the warm than be out there on 11 under" The weather began to clear almost as he said it but by then he was right in the ball game anyway. Come rain or shine, Sergio will be gunning for Ernie.