At the Italian Open a few weeks ago, a couple of young players new to the European tour were overheard discussing Sandy Lyle. One was due to play alongside him the next day and asked quizzically of the other: “Didn’t he win the Masters once?” “I think so,” came the reply. “It’s hard to imagine, though, isn’t it?”

It is easy to see why they might have been so bemused. Today, Lyle has a middle-aged, three-quarter-length swing that is neither pretty nor particularly penetrating. But it is not so much a case of how the mighty have fallen, rather how the mighty have aged.

And yet at the Irish Open yesterday, it was Lyle who was able to give some of the young players a lesson in course management on a day when the combination of long holes, thick rough and 30mph winds played havoc with the scoring.

It is a long time since the Scot has adorned any leaderboard, but at one point he was within two shots of the lead and could have finished the day three shots behind Padraig Harrington – who leads on three under par after a superb round of 68 – had he not double-bogeyed the par-five 18th.

In all, the hole took 40 minutes to play after Emanuele Canonica, playing in the group ahead, called for two separate rulings from the referee, and Lyle admitted that the wait had not helped his cause. On level par and with just 137 yards to the flag for his third shot, Lyle hit what he thought was a perfect eight-iron only to see the ball hold up in the wind, land on a bank and roll back into water guarding the green.

“That was really annoying because I’d hit a super shot in there, but it didn’t even reach the green,” he said. “I dropped the ball into an awful lie, chopped it out and took seven.”

Lyle reached the turn in 34, with three birdies and one bogey, but came home in 40, with further bogeys at the 10th, 13th and 15th and a birdie at the 12th, which compared favourably to those around him. He lies on two over par and inside the top 20.

Now, though, Lyle has the future in mind. He turns 50 next February and will become eligible for the lucrative Champions Tour in the United States. He probably cannot wait. It is a long time since he has been truly competitive – his last victory was at the Volvo Masters 15 years ago – but at his best he was magnificent.

Among the leading Englishmen, Simon Wakefield was on two under par, Simon Dyson was two over and Lee Westwood was four over. Fifty-two players were on ten over par or worse. It really was that tough.