Harrington and Darcy share early lead

Ladbrokes.com Irish PGA Championship: Pádraig Harrington and Eamonn Darcy are joint clubhouse leaders on a fog-delayed opening day of the Ladbrokes.com Irish PGA Championship at The European Club.

Conditions at the Wicklow venue had deteriorated to such an extent organisers were forced to suspend play for two hours as fog made the course unplayable. Even when the fog lifted, conditions were so testing that David Jones is currently the only player under par. The Portrush pro was one-under through six holes. Play has since been suspended for the day and will resume at 7am tomorrow morning.

Defending champion Harrington and veteran Darcy reached the sanctuary of the clubhouse after carding four-over par 75s but that was still good enough to set the current first day's pace.

Harrington had a mixed bag of four bogeys, one double at the 15th and two birdies at the fifth and 10th.  Darcy's round was a different experience, for although he didn't record a single birdie, he made a good fist of damage limitation by carding four bogeys and the rest pars in difficult conditions.

While Jones is currently top of the pile, the chasing pack of David Mortimer, Eoin O'Connor, Martin Sludds, Robert Giles and David Higgins are level par while playing the front nine.

Higgins was one of the Irish players who failed to qualify for next week's Open at Final Local Qualifying in Lancashire yesterday.

There was better news for Philip Walton, however, as the 46-year-old won at West Lancashire with rounds of 72, 70 before rushing for a flight to tee it up in time for today's Irish Championship. The 1995 Ryder Cup hero is currently tied on four-over alongside Harrington and Darcy in the early stages of his round.

Elsewhere the 'Road to The 2011 Solheim Cup' was launched at Killeen Castle today. World number three Suzann Pettersen from Norway and American Morgan Pressel were at the Meath venue for today's launch.

Pettersen and Pressel are just some of the big names in Ireland ahead of this week's AIB Ladies Irish Open which gets underway at Portmarnock Links on Friday.