English duo’s elevated standing driving Dyson forward

A gutsy level-par round of 70 yesterday earned Dyson a top-10 finish in the Open and a lucrative pay-day, and should see him edge back towards the world’s top 50 when the standings are published officially this morning.

But after only earning a ticket to Royal St George’s 11 days ago as a reserve, Dyson now hopes to use his performance as a platform from which to challenge the likes of Lee Westwood, Luke Donald and Ian Poulter at the top of the world game.

“That’s where you always want to be,” said the 33-year-old from Malton. “Look at Darren (Clarke); you have G-Mac (Graeme McDowell) win a major, you have Rory (McIlroy) win and that has spurred Darren on.

“You have Westwood as world No 1, then Luke takes over, and you have Poulter doing well.

“People like that do nothing but spur you on to try to get to where they are. They’ve not won majors but we’ve had two English world No 1s; it’s not a bad second-best.

“I’m sure if you asked them both they’d rather be major winners.

“The way I played last week in Scotland I knew I was coming in here with a nice bit of form.

“Luke had won so he was coming in with a lot better form.

“But I’m a very confident person. I knew I was playing well and you can’t really think about the other English guys. Especially in weather like that.

“I’ve had four of the hardest days of golf I’ve ever had and to come out of it two over par, I’m really pleased with that.”

Dyson finished in a tie for ninth after shooting rounds of 68, 72, 72 and 70. He briefly led the Open on Friday before falling away on the back nine.

However, he hung in there during the severe weekend weather to notch his second top-10 in a major after finishing sixth at the 2007 US PGA Championship.

But despite the reward of a cheque just topping £100,000 that will propel him towards the top-15 finish on the Race to Dubai and into all four of next year’s majors, Dyson’s immediate joy was ensuring his place at Royal Lytham next summer via his top-10 finish.

“It’s more about getting back in next year, that’s the huge one for me,” said Dyson, who was greeted onto most greens yesterday by chants of ‘Yorkshire, Yorkshire’. “It saves having to go to Sunningdale or the regional qualifiers.”

Dyson will now head to Spain to enjoy the holiday he was planning to have before he got the call to head down to Sandwich to contest the Open.

He said: “I’ve been working on some pretty good things this week so instead of having a relaxing holiday I’ll be practising a little bit and hopefully I’ll have a good middle-to-end part of the season.”