Fulke takes lead with course record 63

Sweden's Pierre Fulke set a Monarch's course record of 63 on his way to the halfway lead in the Scottish PGA championship on Friday.

Fulke took full advantage of the benign conditions to break the old mark of 64 set 24 hours earlier by Frenchman Raphael Jacquelin.

His nine-under-par round included an eagle, eight birdies and one bogey.

Jacquelin was unable to reproduce his opening day fireworks, recording a 71 to finish tied for second place at nine under with Scotland's Alastair Forsyth.

Fulke, who leads by two shots, has regained peak form in the past two months after being sidelined for seven months over the latter part of last season and the early portion of 2000.

A week after winning the Lancome Trophy in Paris he suffered what he thought was a left wrist injury but it was not until well into the new year that it was attributed to vertebrae problems in his neck and back.

"I played only two events after the Lancome and it was very frustrating because I felt I had reached another level in my game and competitiveness in Europe," he said.

"My injury was treated like a wrist injury by the best hand surgeon in Sweden but there was nothing structurally wrong with it.

"He cleaned up the tendons while he was in there and I recovered. But I thought it was something else and I saw a chiropractor in Stockholm. He is into a bit of eastern medicine and yoga.

"The vertebrae in my neck and back were in the wrong place and they were sending the wrong signals to the rest of my body. He just put them back in and it now works."

Former British Open champion Paul Lawrie's hopes of ending a 13-month spell without a win nosedived when he recorded a 74 for a three-under aggregate. He had five bogeys on the inward nine.

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