Relaxed after two nightmare years on the European Tour, Andrew Oldcorn moved into contention for the £45,000 Northern Open over the new Spey Valley course with a two-under-par 70 for a three-under aggregate of 141.

It was shirt-sleeve golf against a sun-drenched backdrop of the Cairngorms with long tongues of snow still clearly visible and ski-ing reckoned still to be a possibility this weekend, and the 48-year-old was happier with his game than he has been for several years.

He is chasing small beer this week - an £8000 top prize compared to the career highlight £330,000 he collected in 2001 for winning the PGA Championship at Wentworth. Then he was world No.84, but yesterday you had to trawl down to No.698 to find his name, but that doesn't matter.

"I'm not missing the globetrotting," Oldcorn admitted. "I haven't enjoyed the last two years. I lost my desire, my form suffered and I wasn't competitive. When you're over 45 it's hard to compete at that level."

"I'm playing the Tartan Tour and Challenge Tour to prepare for seniors golf in 2010, I'm feeling more relaxed, and my game's not far away. I just need a bit of momentum."

Bolton-born Oldcorn won a 12-year battle to be regarded as a Scot on residential grounds in 1995 and four years before that was a Tartan Tour No.1 as he recovered from the debilitating illness ME.

Yesterday he was a picture of contentment on his old stamping ground after a steady round over a new course that he was enjoying, though he did caution he would not like to play it in difficult weather conditions.

"Length is not important here but you have to be straight off the tee and that suits my game," he said. "It's a fantastic course with a couple of questionable holes. The seventh is not in keeping with the rest of the course and the long fifth was designed for a westerly wind, not the north-easterly there has been this week. You have to lay up in two and from there you can't see the green."

Oldcorn was three behind leader Chris Doak, the former Tartan Tour No.1, who recovered from a triple-bogey 7 at the 11th where he lost a ball "in the munchies" with birdies at the 12th, 13th, 15th and 17th. He finished with a 70 for 138.

One further adrift was the diminutive Lee Harper, 26, who had a 69 yesterday. At 5ft 5ins the 1999 Scottish boys champion was also challenging to be smallest player in the field but "pound for pound I'm definitely long".

He has just passed his PGA exams as a safeguard if he doesn't achieve his ambition of becoming a tour player. "I want to play rather than have a club job but there are thousands of players all over the world who are trying to do what I'm doing," he said.

In his first two rounds he has had 12 birdies including one from his only visit to the treacherous heather from where he chipped in.