Andy happy to play the waiting game

The elements absolutely battered the course throughout Saturday, making Sullivan's scorecard, which included seven birdies, all the more admirable.

It left him poised menacingly just two shots off the leading trio of Calum Shinkwin, Ian Poulter and Andrew Dodt ahead of a nailbiting final day at the Aberdeen Asset Management Scottish Open.

Sullivan is experienced enough to know that, against conditions the course threw at the players on Saturday, there's no point in battling too hard, and just take your chances when they're presented to you.

He said: "Links golf is one of them where you can just have little bits of fortune.

"You can get some poor shots and the contours take it quite close and hit great shots and it goes in the bunker."You have to be massively patient out there and just pick and choose when you feel like you can be aggressive and when you can't be aggressive.

"Links golf I wouldn't say is the most times where you can be aggressive, but you've really got to be patient, especially weather conditions like this."I think a lot of that, it's done us a world of good going into The Open playing these last few weeks getting used to links golf and the aspects of trying to use the contours instead of just flying it all the way through the air.

"It's nice to get them shots in the bag for next week."It's tough out there. I knew from the start if I could just go out there and really grind it out and put a number up there, I knew it's only going to go one way, up the leaderboard. So it's really nice to obviously finish and see myself up there and hopefully stay there."