Darren Clarke and Padraig Harrington have been beaten in the first round of the Accenture world match play championship in California.
Clarke scored the biggest win of his career in this event two years ago, triumphing over Tiger Woods in the final. But the Tyrone man was unable to emulate that success today, going down two and one to American Matt Gogel.
Elsewhere on the La Costa course, Padraig Harrington fared little better. The Dubliner, who came into the tournament as 11th seed, was beaten three and two by American left-hander Steve Flesch.
Paul McGinley, Ireland’s other representative in the event, tees off his match with Joe Durant shortly before 8 p.m. Irish time.
Clarke made a good enough start to his challenge, holing from 18 feet on the short third after they finished the same distance from the hole and tossed a coin for who putted first.
Gogel's response was immediate.
The winner of the Pebble Beach Pro-am at the start of the month pitched to within inches of the cup on the next and won the fifth with a par four when Clarke was unable to get up and down from a greenside bunker.
Critically Clarke three-putted the seventh and could not answer Gogel's approach to five feet on the 398-yard eighth.
Three down with eight to play, the match became alive again when Clarke birdied the 11th and 12th, but his bogey at the 378-yard 15th put him back into deep trouble and, try as he did, the flight home beckoned four days earlier than it did two years ago.
He had to make a 15-footer on the long 17th to stay alive, but lipped out and shook hands.
Clarke said: ''Tee to green everything was really good, but my putting was shocking.
"I was inside Matt 14 times, but had only two single-putts. You can't do that, in match play you have to get up and down.
"I can't blame the greens. I've not been putting great lately."