Walton endures a day to forget

Former winner Philip Walton lost no fewer than seven balls in the water as the Dubliner crashed to a nightmare 89 at the French Open today.

The 1990 champion, now 45, trailed off in last place after carding a 12, a seven and three sixes at Le Golf National.

The 12 at the 470-yard 18th, his ninth, saw him put a five-wood second and three pitches into the lake around the green.

It completed an inward 49 as he had also put two balls in the pond at the 13th and another on the 15th.

"That's just shocking - unreal," said the match-winning hero of the 1995 Ryder Cup. "I even made a lot of putts for par. It could have been a 95!

"I think my caddie's gone to hang himself. I broke all records there.  I've never lost that many balls and my previous highest was an 11 at The Belfry. That's one tough course out there."

Walton no longer holds a European Tour card, but qualifies this week as a past champion.

Colin Montgomerie put the horrors of the US Open behind him with an opening three under par 68.

Returning to the course where he triumphed in 2000 the Scot tucked in just two behind Swede Christian Nilsson with a score 14 strokes better than his second round at Oakmont two weeks ago.

That 82 was his second worst round ever in a major and Montgomerie, who did not play because of illness last week, said: "It was probably one of the worst days of my career - second to a year previous."

He was referring there, of course, to his closing double bogey in the same event at Winged Foot when a par would have broken his major duck.

Oakmont was where he lost a play-off in 1994, but he did not enjoy his return one little bit.

"There was a lot wrong that day and I would like to forget it and move on. The greens were a lot more severe than I remembered and my preparation was not quite right, caddie-wise and otherwise."

He had parted company with long-time caddie Alastair McLean on the eve of the event and is now with Craig Connelly, who is no longer with Paul Casey.

"It's very early stages. It's easy for him and easy for me when I played like I did today. The difficult stage is when things start going wrong."

The pair had the near-perfect start with three birdies in the first four and after three-putting the short 16th Montgomerie returned to three under by finding the edge of the green in two at the 563-yard third and two-putting.

He did drop another shot on the eighth, but made amends immediately and hitting 16 out of 18 greens in regulation was indicative of how well the eight-time European number one struck the ball in a testing wind.

Nilsson's 66 came as a massive relief to a player ranked 148th on this season's Order of Merit.

The 28-year-old actually began by hooking a drive into water and a bogey there was his only dropped shot and he collected six birdies in the next 13 holes before parring in — no mean feat with water everywhere.

Eighteen-year-old Oliver Fisher, one of British golf's brightest prospects, had led the field after three opening birdies, but with two to play he had slipped back to level par.

Alongside Montgomerie in second place was England's Tom Whitehouse and Swede Johan Axgren.