The golf swing, according to Tom Watson, is a bit like ironing a shirt. “You get one side smoothed out, turn it over and there is a big wrinkle on the other side. Then you iron that one out, turn it over and there is yet another wrinkle.”

When it comes to mammoth undertakings, few golfing tasks are as arduous as a complete restructuring of a swing. You can end up with more wrinkles than Methuselah’s brow.

Euan Walker is in the midst of such a major overhaul of his technique but he’s slowly getting into, well, the swing here in the Carrick Neill Scottish Open Strokeplay Championship at Gleneagles as the Barassie man stayed in touch with the leaders at the halfway stage.

A couple of late bogeys took some of the shine off his day but the 23-year-old’s two-under 68 on the King’s Course, for a five-under 135, left him in second place, just a shot behind the French leader, Victor Veyret.

Walker maintains that he is still a work in progress but the changes that he has adopted, under the careful eye of his coach George Boswell, are bearing fruit.

“I felt I had achieved as much as I could with the swing I had and it was never going to be good enough for the elite level of the amateur game,” said the US college graduate who is still seeking that major moment in the unpaid ranks. “The reconstruction is not fully completed but it’s getting there.”

On a testing day in a bothersome breeze, Walker harnessed the wind to good effect but after covering 14 holes in four-under, he was left counting the cost of a bogey on the 16th and a disappointing leaked stroke on the par-5 18th, where he thinned his pitch from 40 odd yards through the back of the green. “I made an absolute mess of the last and that was a huge mistake,” he added.

That late wobble cost Walker the outright lead but credit had to be given to Veyret who was a couple of matches ahead of the Scot and set the standard with a fine 65 for a six-under total.

In the robust conditions, it was a terrific effort and one illuminated by an eagle on the 14th. “I played the front nine in two-under and that was certainly the tougher nine so that was pleasing,” said the former Italian Open Amateur champion, who is aiming to become the fourth Frenchman to win the Scottish Open crown.

This particular title has been carted off to a few places down the years but going to Kazakhstan would be a first.

Nurtai Saldarov, an 18-year-old from the central Asian country who bases himself at Craigielaw in East Lothian during the summer, kept himself in the hunt with a second successive 69 for a 138 aggregate.

“Golf is growing little by little in Kazakhstan and there are probably 15 or 20 decent amateur events as well as the European Challenge Tour event which I've been fortunate to play in,” noted Saldarov, who won his national amateur title last year.

Airdrie's Greg Dalziel, the former Scottish Boys' champion, birdied two of his last three holes in a 68 to move onto a 140 total and was joined on that mark by Euan McIntosh, who is bidding to become the first player to win both the men's matchplay and strokeplay titles in the same season.