WHEN Ian Poulter and Jean Van de Velde set off together after an early lunch, with the sun shining and the wind blowing hard even for seaside golf, they would not have expected that their rounds would be defined by their characters.

Yet they were. Poulter, who is often misjudged and derided because he wears ridiculous trousers, is a tough professional, a fine shot-maker and willing grinder.

There was nothing flash in his golf yesterday as he carded a 75 that leaves him among a clutch of players at eight-over-par 218 and in with a shout of winning The Open today.

His first shot, a low, raking long iron under the wind, set the tone. Shot-making and a refusal to buckle would characterise his third round.

“I feel good and my confidence is up. I’m hitting good shots, so if I keep doing that, we’re going to run close,” the 32-year-old Englishman said later. “To be on the leaderboard in the Open Championship – it is a nice place to be come the weekend.”

Van de Velde’s experience was much more in keeping with the majority of the field – and, you could say, with his life. Let us not drag up the drama of Carnoustie in 1999, when he blew a three-shot lead on the final hole; let’s just say it rates as about the worst disaster story in the history of the game.

In the nine years since then, the Frenchman has divorced, remarried, started a second family, suffered a terrible knee injury when skiing, had two reconstructive operations and suffered a virus that was so debilitating, it was feared he had cancer.

Yet he has never lost his sense of humour and easy charm. “Golf is just a game – a fantastic game, but still just a game,” he said here. “I carry that thought around with me on the course big-time. Coming up the 18th you would not believe the pain I had in my leg, but that’s nothing. I’m here and lots of people are not.”

After opening rounds of 73 and 71, he needed that perspective yesterday. First, he leaked strokes, then came the crash. On the par-three fourth he duck-hooked his tee shot 50 yards left of the green into a tangle of bush, knee-high grass and hawthorn saplings.

“Give me space. This can go anywhere,” he told spectators in the vicinity. It could also go next to nowhere, for he chopped at it as hard as he could and it moved forwards a couple of feet.

So it went on, but somehow Van de Velde finds happiness amid the ruins. He had a brilliant eagle three on the 17th and raised his arms to the heavens, just as he might have done nine years ago, if fate, or whatever it was, had not dictated otherwise. His 80 left him 14 over.