McGrane heads Irish challenge

GOLF/SICILIAN OPEN:ON THE day that was in it, you'd have expected some rub of the green. Not a bit of it. Instead, as the inaugural Sicilian Open got under way yesterday at Donnafugata Resort in the foothills above the seaside town of Ragusa, the quartet of Irish players shared a common bond of frustration as Welshman Stephen Dodd and Spain's José Manuel Lara opened with six-under-par 65s to share the first-round lead.

Damien McGrane was the only Irish player to shoot a sub-par round, holing a 25-footer on the ninth, his 18th, to return a 70. But Gareth Maybin, recovering from a sprained finger suffered while working out in the gym, couldn’t muster a single birdie in a round of 71 that remarkably featured 18 pars, while Shane Lowry – playing for the first time this year – and Peter Lawrie each returned one-over 72s which could have been considerably better.

Given that his four-week spell at home didn’t involve too much time golfing, McGrane admitted to being “rusty”. Still, he started well – reaching the turn in three-under – only to squander shots with a couple of three-putts on his run home. “I actually played a lot of good shots but the greens are hard to putt on. Maybe I was just looking too much into them,” said McGrane, whose last appearance on tour was a tied-42th finish in the Dubai Desert Classic.

“I’m glad to be back out again. Four weeks at home is plenty and I was looking forward to packing my bags and getting back on the road after a month of doing nothing,” said McGrane, who finally got the putter hot again with a closing birdie.

Maybin’s round had echoes of Nick Faldo’s round of 18 straight pars in winning the British Open at Muirfield in 1987. This course and event are far removed from that feat of Faldo’s, but Maybin showed resolve of his own on this Gary Player-designed course with its dormant grasses, no rough and fiery greens to keep a bogey off his card. “My iron play was poor and I putted average, I deserved level par,” remarked the Ulsterman.

In Lowry’s case, a lost ball on the par-five 12th proved especially costly. This pernickety doglegged hole, with a blind uphill approach over bushes and scrubs, caught out the Offaly man. Two under at the time, he hit a four-iron approach from 190 yards believing it would find the centre of the green only to discover it had found a new home somewhere among the gecko lizards in the undergrowth. He was forced to return to the site of his original shot and ran up an ugly double-bogey seven, which was compounded by a three-putt bogey on the 14th where he three-putted.

Playing for the first time since suffering a break to his scaphoid bone last December, Lowry said: “I wasn’t expecting to go out and shoot a great score but, after I got it going nicely, I was sticking to my plan and routine except for that four iron. It was kind of hard to take.”

Lawrie, too, was ticking along nicely for much of his round – going to one-under through seven – but didn’t get the momentum required despite having a number of other birdie chances. He then dropped shots on the 14th, where he overhit his approach onto a cart path, and salvaged what is known as a “good bogey” on the 18th.

SICILIAN OPEN

at Donnafugata Resort. Par 71. (British unless stated)

65 – S Dodd, JM Lara (Spa) 66 – A Wall, R Jacquelin (Fra) 67 – S Webster, C Wood, D Gaunt (Aus), M Zions (Aus) 68 – C Del Moral (Spa), J Luiten (Ned), F Zanotti (Par), M Jonzon (Swe), R Green (Aus), J Bickerton, Sebi Garcia (Spa) 69 – M Crespi (Ita), M Lundberg (Swe), S Hansen (Den), C Montgomerie, A Garcia-Heredia (Spa), R Echenique (Arg), O Floren (Swe), G Storm, J Elson, G Baruffaldi (Ita), A Canizares (Spa), I Garrido (Spa), B Wiesberger (Aut) 70 – Damien McGrane, S Kapur (Ind), R Dinwiddie, D Lynn, C Carranza (Arg), G Coetzee (Rsa), V Dubuisson (Fra), J Knutzon (US), S Khan, J Sjoholm (Swe), A Marshall, R Finch, W Ormsby (Aus), B Etchart (Spa) 71 – R Coles, S Norris (Rsa), S Dyson, P Larrazabal (Spa), S Jamieson, R Rock, T Norret (Den), O Henningsson (Swe), M Wiegele (Aut), C Nilsson (Swe), Gareth Maybin, P Price, N Colsaerts (Bel), S Manley, S Tiley, S Hutsby, R Gonzalez (Arg), M Haastrup (Den), S Gallacher, P Oriol (Spa), A Perrino (Ita) 72 – S Lewton, L Bond, P Edberg (Swe), Peter Lawrie, S Wakefield, G Boyd, L Slattery, M Warren, E Johansen (Nor), Shane Lowry, M Haines, A Forsyth, R Bland, J Singh (Ind), J Huldahl (Den), M Carlsson (Swe), F Delamontagne (Fra), P Broadhurst, P Lawrie, K Horne (Rsa), M Foster, L Gagli (Ita) 73 – A Velasco (Spa), G Orr, P Hedblom (Swe), K Ferrie, O Fisher, F Fritsch (Ger), C Rocca (Ita), F Colombo (Ita), N Fasth (Swe), M Brier (Aut), S Luna (Spa), F Ohlsson (Swe), R Kakko (Fin), M Tullo (Chi), M Campbell (Nzl), M Nixon, N Dougherty, J Zapata (Arg), L Saltman, J Donaldson, T Goya (Arg), G Bourdy (Fra), E Canonica (Ita), A Hart (Den) 74 – G Murray, R Derksen (Ned), A Gee, P Whiteford, R McEvoy, D Willett, M Korhonen (Fin), S Benson, J Edfors (Swe), M Ruiz (Par), D Dixon, N Bertasio (Ita) 75 – A Maestroni (Ita), P Waring, J Van Zyl (Rsa), S O'Hara, S Shankar, SSP Chowrasia (Ind), A Tadini (Ita), A Noren (Swe), JF Lucquin (Fra), M Quiros (Spa) 76 – R Wattel (Fra), N Quintarelli (Ita), F Bergamaschi (Ita), T Sluiter (Ned), G Havret (Fra) 77 – F Aguilar (Chi), J Haeggman (Swe), T Olesen (Den), A Canete (Arg), T Levet (Fra) 78 – A Pavan (Ita), A Kaleka (Fra) 79 – F Andersson Hed (Swe) 80 – A Kang (US).