THE tranquillity and beauty for which Loch Lomond is famous was disturbed again yesterday when a row spilt over between Greg Owen and the Royal and Ancient Golf Club on the eve of the Open. Owen aimed angry words at the R & A, words that were so strong and heartfelt they overshadowed some remarkably good scoring on the second day of the Barclays Scottish Open — a 63 by Maartin Lafeber, which gave him the lead, 64s by Simon Dyson and Alastair Forsyth and 65s by Darren Clarke, Paul Broadhurst, Ben Mason, Gary Orr, Jonathan Lomas and Jamie Donaldson.

Owen’s beef centres on whom the R & A chooses to replace Billy Mayfair in next week’s Open at St Andrews. The R & A selected Bob Tway, the 1986 US PGA champion, describing him as the next highest non-exempt player in the world rankings.

Owen took issue with this, pointing out that he and Arron Oberholser and Jeff Maggert, the Americans, were ranked higher and were not exempt for the Open either. They were overlooked because they pulled out of the international final qualifying competition at Canoe Brook, New Jersey, on June 27 and were deemed by the R & A to have withdrawn from the Open. It is not known why Oberholser and Maggert withdrew. Owen did so to compete in the Smurfit European Open at the K Club, near Dublin.

“The R & A are the R & A and always will be,” Owen said. “They sit around and discuss something over a glass of port and decide to make it law without writing it down anywhere. Where is the sense in that? We are professional players trying to make a living and we are relying on people making decisions they shouldn’t be making.

“We spend all our careers trying to earn world-ranking points to get into the major championships and the world championships and to skip somebody because I pulled out of a qualifier in the US to come and support my home tour is disgraceful,” Owen said. “They accepted my registration form but say I can’t play at St Andrews because I didn’t go to the qualifying. It’s not written down anywhere. It’s just a typical R & A decision.

“When we spoke to them, they said it was not written down that if you pull out of the qualifiers you pull out of the Open. It’s a decision they made earlier this year. Now you explain that. If it had said it on the form, I would have no arguments. But it says it nowhere on the form. They say they decided it earlier this year.”

Interestingly, if Owen had played only one stroke at Canoe Brook and then withdrawn he might be playing at St Andrews next week instead of attempting to gain entry by being the highest finisher at this event who is not exempt. “That is the stupid thing about it,” Owen said. “They don’t ask you to complete two rounds. They just ask you to tee it up.”

Stewart McDougall, the R & A’s spokesman, maintained that this ruling had been in place for some time, the implication being that Owen ought to have known about it. McDougall pointed out that the same thing happened to David Frost, the South African, last year. That poses the question as to why this provision was not on the entry form.

Although Owen has been denied entry to the oldest major championship by one route, he is making a good attempt to get in another way. If he carries on playing as well as he did in the second round at Loch Lomond, when he scored 66, including holing out with an eight-iron from 153 yards on the 2nd, his 11th, to be nine under par, three strokes behind Lafeber, the leader, he stands a chance of winning the first prize of €592,388 (about £400,000) that would guarantee his entry anyway.

Among those blocking his path to victory is Lafeber, a Dutchman whose only victory on the European tour was in the 2003 Dutch Open, although he won the Kenya Open, a Challenge tour event, in 1999. After an on-off relationship with Jos Vanstiphout, the mind coach, Lafeber started working with him again on Wednesday.

Lafeber’s 63 did not contain a hint of a mistake. “When I woke up I saw it was beautiful weather with no wind and obviously a great day for scoring,” he said.