Walking wounded buckle under bogey burden

EUROPEAN OPEN: Golf isn't a contact sport but it can still prove hazardous to the health of participants judging by the unprecedented number of retirals and withdrawals during yesterday's first round of the European Open at The K Club writes John O'Sullivan at the K Club

Six players shuffled to tournament director David Garland's office offering the golfing equivalent of "the dog ate my homework". The first casualty was France's Jean-François Lucquin whose bogey, bogey, bogey start revealed a collarbone injury.

Before you could say "sacré bleu," Sweden's Pierre Fulke was in the car-park, forced to retire with a wrist problem of long standing. Recording four bogeys in seven holes would be painful for anyone.

The next knock on the door came from Jamie Spence, a player doubly blighted with foot and groin strains; oh, and four bogeys and a double bogey in eight holes.

Thomas Bjorn's candour when he retired after six holes - four over at the time - was admirable. The Dane admitted: "I am out of sorts at the moment and feel uncomfortable on the golf course. I'm going home to sort out my game as there are some enormously important events on the horizon."

Garland, probably delighted not to have to thumb through the medical thesaurus for a fourth time, sympathised: "Having spoken to Thomas on the golf course, we are sympathetic towards his retirement from the tournament and look forward to his return to competition in the near future."

As the sound of sirens faded, the rest of the field managed to negotiate the full 18 holes but the carnage didn't stop there. Stuart Little and Peter Baker were struck down by a stomach complaint and tennis elbow - or the fact that both shot 11-over-par 83s.

There were other casualties on a day when the Smurfit course at the K Club won six and five against the field. Numbers ran higher than temperatures as many endured the trauma of playing an unfamiliar course in blustery, squally weather without the aid of a safety net.

Justin Rose's fate on the par-five 18th, where he ran up a triple-bogey eight, was not uncommon. He explained: "It (the 18th) is straight downwind so you feel you have to take advantage of the hole. I felt that it was better for me to play it as a three-shotter all week instead of taking it on but the way the wind was today was almost too good to be true.

"So I bit off a little more than I could chew on the tee shot (he drove it into the water). The second ball just ran through and I had a lie that was 50-50 going for the green and obviously having hit a shot in the water you are playing a bit of catch-up. I don't seem to be very good at that at the moment, taking my medicine."

Wet again, he had to drop out, chipped on and two-putted. In mitigation there were plenty of others who could recount a similar story but few who demonstrated Rose's steel in shooting a fighting 73.