SUNDAY Marc Warren didn't hang around this morning. First off in the final round of the BMW Italian Open, he and Englishman Benn Barham covered the Royal Park course in 2hr 21min and were back in the clubhouse with the group behind barely at the turn and most of the field still to start including John Daly who turned up in a pair of lurid patterned trousers that looked like a fruit salad.

It makes you wonder why we can't have more of this. The going was heavy after last night's spectacular thunderstorm but Warren still improved by four strokes over his third round with a level-par 71 while Barham had a 69 which was nine better.

There was the incentive of catching a lunchtime flight from Turin airport which both managed comfortably and they would have been back in the UK when the leaders were barely off the tee. Warren was even seen breaking into a gentle jog down the fairway at the 10th, but you do wonder if the snail's pace that most tournament golf is played at is absolutely necessary.

Add on 40 minutes to this performance and you have a comfortable three-hour round. By that standard four hours is painfully slow, the five-hour norm is like a standstill. The six hours that has been reached most frequently in women's golf, courtesy in large part of tortuous procedures with caddies lining up players for every single shot, is beyond redemption.

I like the Laura Davies solution for dealing with slow players. "Shoot them," she proposed, and there are many who see slow play as the cancer within golf, who would heartily agree with those sentiments.

Meanwhile full marks to Warren and Barham for showing what is eminently possible.

SATURDAY John Daly has been impressing here with not just his unusually good behaviour and decent play that has taken him to the fringes of contention in the BMW Italian Open, but also his "look at me" trousers which have their volume control turned up to deafening.

There have been chef's trousers and multi-coloured patchwork ones and he has promised that these will pale into insignificance with a particularly lurid pair he is saving for tomorrow's final round.

"My pants?" he queried as if there was nothing odd about them when asked about the subject. "It's a lot of fun. I remember the days when Johnnie Miller, Jack Nicklaus and some of the veterans from the 70s and 80s wore some stuff like this. It's kind of neat. I've got 21-22 pairs with me. I don't think about it. I pile them up in the suitcase and just pull them out but I will finish with a good pair."

Daly, with a surgically reduced stomach, is losing weight fast and was unable to take part in the Italian Golf Federation beanfeast last night in Turin's top hotel, the Principi Do Piemonte, where the hospitality abounded with courses galore and a different wine with each. This is reckoned to be a 7lb-plus week.

Meanwhile back on to the birdies and bogeys nonsense on the Royal Park course, and Peter O'Malley, the 43-year-old Australian, was up to the tricks of 1992 vintage from the Kings Course at Gleneagles where he won the Scottish Open with a blistering of eagle-birdie-birdie-birdie-eagle finish.

O'Malley had six birdies in seven holes today as he hit the leaderboard with a 64 that would have equalled the course record had the preferred lies rule not been in operation as a precaution because of forecast bad weather.

Chris Gane, who has already featured in this blog as the man who took 17 on the final hole of the PGA Centenary Course at Gleneagles in a previous Johnnie Walker Classic, was notable today for his good play. He took 17 this time to cover the first five holes of the back nine in a 68 that took him on to the leaderboard.

FRIDAY Alastair Forsyth was turning a deaf ear to the many distractions on the Royal Park course today as he valiantly tried to survive the cut in the BMW Italian Open.

This is the kind of fraught action you rarely see on television. Survival is hardly glamorous and many of the few who were watching were there by accident and causing a nuisance. Not only were mobile phones going off regularly but people then actually answered them and yittered loudly.

Forsyth was playing alongside Lee Slattery yesterday and the Englishman's caddie finally lost it with a group of young Italians who were ignoring the "silenzio" signs raised by stewards as players were preparing to hit.

"If you want to commentate go to the TV compound," he shouted at them in great irritation. The response from one was to turn round and bend over to show his backside which mercifully remained covered.

This was at the second hole, their 11th, and Forsyth was unmoved, hitting a short iron up to a few feet and holing out for his fourth birdie of the day. Having started with a two-over 73 he knew he needed to improve to remain in this pleasant part of the world in the shadow of the Alps for the weekend.

At one under with three holes to play he was on course to make it and joint fellow Glaswegian Marc Warren who had a sensational finish. With five holes to play and three over par it looked like a lost cause but four birdies in a row from the fifth, his 14th, took him through with a 67 for a one-under par aggregate.

Paul Lawrie had a similar finish. He also started at the 10th and birdied four of his last five holes, the fifth, sixth, seventh and ninth, also for a 67 and a one-over-par aggregate. He will have to sweat it out for the remainder of the day to find out if he is in for the weekend. THURSDAY

With Richie Ramsay leading the BMW Italian Open at six under par after 16 holes and Martin Laird leading the Players Championship as an early starter at two under par after two, it is a truly a golden moment with the Saltire flying high both on the European Tour and the PGA Tour.

In these austere times with no Scot in the world's top 100, and with apologies for the pessimism, this is one to get in quick before it all goes pear-shaped. One of these days a Scot will be up there by close of play on Sunday. It might as well be this week, and both players are proven winners at lower levels, but don't raise your hopes unduly.

Meanwhile at the Royal Park clubhouse, 20 miles from Turin, there is no escaping the god football. A television the size of a cinema screen was relaying the Champions League semi-final between Chelsea and Barcelona and the great and the good were agog last night watching the action.

The patter was still rich today. "There's a massive outbreak of swine flu in London," came the warning. Really? "Yes, a quarter of a million Chelsea fans are pig sick."

In search of a more spiritual uplifting, who better to watch than Colin Montgomerie, but alas and alack you could spot him from several hundred yards, those famous slumped shoulders indicating that all was not going well.

It might have been a beautiful spring shirt-sleeves morning in the shadow of the snow-capped Alps with wildlife abounding in the tree-lined Fiat-owned parkland course, but all was gloom and despondency for Scotland's most famous golfer as he raised his head momentarily to scan an appreciative gallery of just over a hundred.

It was one of those mornings where he was liable, in the great PG Wodehouse phrase, to be distracted by the uproar of butterflies, and there was, indeed, a threat. A high pollen count meant a sneeze at the critical moment of the backswing was always likely.

Monty is languishing at world No.171, but at the 197-yard 12th, his third, third he found a river fronting the green then missed his bogey putt and tossed another ball into the fast-flowing water.

Later a small smile played across his lips as a birdie putt dropped at the third, his 12th, to cries of "bravo" but two holes later there was a 7 on the card and a round of 72. "A 67 or 68 is what I need," he lamented, "but where is it going to come from? This is a good course and a nice atmosphere with nice people, but it's not enjoyable when you're scoring 72."

Ramsay, meanwhile, bogeyed the tough last two holes for a 67, but still holding on to the lead with a third of the field finished.

WEDNESDAY

Just when you were admiring the fantastic view of the Alps from the Italian Open Course at Turin along came John Daly wearing what looked like a yellow version of a pair of chef's trousers.

On his European Tour sojourn Daly has been wearing the kind of breeks that would make Ian Poulter blush, but if you can avert your eyes from such sartorial extravagances the scenery here at the course called Royal Park 1 Roveri and owned by the Fiat company which has its home in Turin is jaw-dropping.

You fly into Turin low over the snow-capped peaks and they dominate the backdrop for what was the pro-am yesterday, and Colin Montgomerie found himself with a late change of amateur partners.

He was due to play alongside a trio of Juventus footballers including Pavil Nedved, but alas manager Claudio Ranieri called them back to do some serious work to improve a poor run of form and the European Ryder Cup captain instead found himself playing alongside a team including Paolo De Chiesa, a former Olympic skier amid some weak jokes about taking slalom-type routes down the fairway.

Among the lesser lights in the field this week is Englishman Chris Gane, with whom I shared a pleasant journey to the course from the airport despite a mighty gaffe.

I was trying to remember where I had encountered him before, then the penny dropped. "Aren't you the one we associate with the 18th at Gleneagles?" I asked, and the words were out before it occurred that this was hardly a diplomatic start to the conversation.

"Yes I am and thank you for reminding me," he replied and mercifully he was laughing, which is the only thing you can really do about the 17 he ran up at the par 5 hole courtesy of a series of lost balls and sundry hacks in the rough during the 2003 Johnnie Walker Championship.

"I don't think I'll ever live that down. I was giving a talk to a class of school kids recently and one of them asked me what was the highest score I'd ever had at one hole. I'm sure it was a set-up. Hopefully I'll be talking to you this week about my good play."

The 1.25pm first-round start today, meanwhile, could be a rehearsal for next week's debate by the European Tour's tournament committee on wild-cards for the Ryder Cup. The group comprises Thomas Bjorn, the chairman, and two of his committee men, Scotland's Paul Lawrie and Northern Irishman Darren Clarke.