Dan Brown continues to write incredible Open story at Troon

Dan Brown produced a gripping sequel to his stunning first-round Open performance on Friday – then hoped his famous namesake would be mistaken for him.

The Englishman served up a late-night thriller at Royal Troon on Thursday when he carded a brilliant six-under-par 65 in the day’s penultimate group to claim a one-stroke lead.

The 29-year-old qualifier followed that up with a steady 72 in his second round to sit on five under, just two shots behind 36-hole leader Shane Lowry, with whom he will go out in the final group on Moving Day.

Since turning professional seven years ago, Brown has grown used to jokes comparing him to the best-selling writer Dan Brown, author of ‘Angels and Demons’ and ‘The Da Vinci Code’, but now wants to reverse that situation.

“Yes, I’ve had that a lot,” he said. “The whole Da Vinci Code and all that kind of thing.

“Hopefully, I can start making a bit of a name for myself, and people will say that to him, ‘are you the golfer?’”

Brown has tried to take being thrust into the limelight in his stride.

He said: “I’ve always been quite laid back really. I think I am a bit of a realist as well.

“I know I’m not going to start getting ahead of myself and thinking, ‘oh my God, I’m leading The Open or I’m second in The Open or whatever’.

“There’s still 36 holes left. I might have a good round tomorrow, and then I might have a stinky round on Sunday. You just don’t know.”

After stepping off the course just after 9.30pm on Thursday, he was back on the first tee at 11.04am the following morning.

With such a tight turnaround, he has had little time to take in the enormity of his achievement so far and now hopes a few games of table tennis will keep him grounded ahead of the weekend.

He said: “I managed to get quite a bit of sleep, seven or eight hours. I was knackered. I don’t think I’ve had a late finish like that in a long time.

“Tonight, thankfully, they’ve got a ping pong table in the players’ lounge. So we’ll probably have a few games of that. I’ve got a few of my mates here and they’ve got players’ lounge passes.

“We’ve got a house 10 minutes down the road and I’ve got a few of my mates staying as well. They’ll do a good job in keeping my mind off it.”

He was heading in the wrong direction on day two when he hit a wayward second shot at the par-five fourth and then failed to get up and down at the ninth to turn in 38.

But he holed an 18-footer at the tenth and took advantage of the par-five 16th before dropping a shot after going over the green on the next.

"It was certainly three or four shots harder, I would have said," he added. "Even the front nine played a lot stronger and then the back, you would think going back downwind it would make it easier, but it was so firm that it was a proper struggle to try and hold on to some of the greens really."