Cautious approach leads to early exit

GOLF:Once he had three-putted on his second visit of the day to the 16th green, Padraig Harrington removed his cap and shook his conqueror's hand. This wasn't how the British Open champion had wanted it to end, so soon and so tamely. It left an empty feeling in the pit of his stomach.

"There'll be a lot of soul-searching," he remarked, after losing to Denmark's Anders Hansen in the first round of the HSBC World Matchplay here yesterday.

On a day when thick fog had smothered the West Course and forced a delay of over two hours to the first round, which resulted in two matches failing to finish when the evening light faded, Harrington was one of those to make an early exit.

If there was any comfort, not that he was seeking it, it was that Justin Rose, his main antagonist for the Order of Merit title, was also an early casualty.

"I don't look on it as a case of Justin also losing, I look on it as a case of it being an opportunity lost from my own viewpoint. This was an opportunity for me, and I've a lot of soul-searching to do as to why I'm playing well (in practice) but don't produce it. There was a lack of fear in my play, and I couldn't raise my game," said Harrington.

For Harrington, yesterday was one of those days when the biorhythms seemed askew. That three-putt on the 16th, his 34th hole, was his ninth bogey of the day.

That's not your typical Harrington. And, critically, whenever he did hole a birdie putt to gain some momentum, Hansen responded. A case in point came on the ninth in the afternoon, when the Dubliner sank a 20-footer for birdie only for the Dane to follow him in from 15 feet to halve the hole and stay three-up.

Indeed, Harrington was never ahead in the match. "I came out in a defensive mode," explained Harrington, who believed that part of the reason for this mindset was that he had played so well in Wednesday's pro-am.

"I tend to be conservative in those situations, when I've played well in practice or pro-ams, and I don't commit to shots. I watched my opponent too much and he got his rhythm going and I gave him a head start."

Hansen reached the turn in the morning two-up, covering the front nine in a modest one-over to Harrington's three-over. The golf was scrappy, to say the least.

But it improved, for both players, on the homeward run, which they each covered in three-under to leave Hansen two-up at the shortened lunch break.

And, on the resumption, Hansen immediately went three-up by winning the first hole after Harrington missed the green with his approach and failed to save par. Harrington never got into his flow, and the writing was very much on the wall when he went five-down when he lost the 12th after being in a drain.

It was only then, five down with six to play, that Harrington got aggressive. He won the 13th, holing a 15-footer for birdie, and the 15th after Hansen left a bunker shot in the trap.

But time ran out on the 16th, where he aggressively hit a sandwedge from 115 yards some 30 feet past the hole and proceeded to three-putt.

That was that.

So Hansen, whose only two wins have come on this course in the PGA, moved on to a second-round clash with either Henrik Stenson or Woody Austin, who were all square standing on the 18th tee when fading light left them with no option but to return this morning to complete their match.

"I was never confident all day," Harrington admitted. "I'd no intensity, and that was half my problem. I just didn't get into the match and didn't start to play good, aggressive golf until I went five down."

Harrington now flies out to Bermuda tomorrow for next week's Grand Slam of Golf (on Monday and Tuesday), but he has dismissed thoughts of adding the Portuguese Masters to his schedule. Instead, he will play the Hassan Trophy in Morocco in a fortnight (which doesn't count on the European Tour), and then finish his quest for the European Tour money title at the Volvo Masters in Valderrama next month.

While the demise of Harrington to Hansen and Rose to Hunter Mahan were the two biggest upsets yesterday, there were some impressive performances, most notably from Angel Cabrera, who had no fewer than 11 birdies in the 31 holes it took him to beat Retief Goosen.

And, in the clash of the two heavyweights and course specialists, Ernie Els accounted for Colin Montgomerie by 6 and 5.

"I played rubbish, rubbish," lamented Montgomerie. "It was awful. The worse I played, the better Ernie became."

Els went to bed last night not knowing who he would meet in the second round as he chases a seventh title. Andres Romero, who had been three down at one point to Sweden's Niclas Fasth, had battled back to move into a two-hole lead after 32 holes when their match was halted by darkness.

Meanwhile, American Mahan accounted for Rose 5 and 4, closing out the match on the short 14th with a winning par, to set up a meeting with Soren Hansen of Denmark, a 4 and 3 winner over South African Rory Sabbatini.