Harrington's tidy day's work

Padraig Harrington has a penchant for costly, golf-tournament dramatics. But he emerged unscathed from a remarkable happening on the 18th at the TPC Sawgrass yesterday, to complete the opening round of the Players' Championship with an admirable 70 - two under par.

From a pushed, five-iron approach down the last, Harrington found a duffer's lie in a swale to the right of the green. This was revealed by his recovery pitch. "I've just hit three balls with the one shot," he shouted across to Bob Estes. "Did you hit the right one?" his playing partner enquired. By way of reply, a typical Harrington grin said it all.

As it happened, the Dubliner's Callaway ball had come to rest on top of an unsighted Maxfli and a Spalding. "They weren't the type a professional would play," said caddie Dave McNeilly afterwards.

Unfortunately, there was a price to be paid for his waywardness in that his failure to get up and down resulted in a closing bogey.

Still, the Dubliner was justifiably pleased with his first competitive round on one of the world's most difficult courses. "I wasn't that confident with my swing and I hit quite a few negative shots out there," he said afterwards. "So, in the circumstances, I can't be disappointed with my score."

The round contained four birdies and two bogeys. And there was a wonderful up-and-down for par at the ninth, where he pitched to eight feet after having problems all the way, and another up-and-down at the par-five 11th, reflecting the difficulty of the long holes here.

A sand-wedge to five feet for birdie at the first and a two-putt birdie at the long second sent him straight to the top of the leaderboard as one of the early starters. He also birdied the 10th where a nine-iron of 142yards came to rest little more than two feet from the pin.

But he then had to survive a nerve-wracking bogey at the 12th where a first putt of 30 feet careered across a slope, 25 feet from the target. "That was through lack of knowledge of the course," he said ruefully, having hit the hole with his second putt.

For the most part, however, his game was beautifully controlled, especially in his play of the long 16th. There, after a perfect drive, long and to the right half of the fairway, he hit a five-iron second shot of 212 yards which finished five feet behind the pin.

By his own admission, he had been aiming five yards to the left of the pin, which was treacherously placed to the right front of the green. Unfortunately, he misread the eagle putt, playing for a right-to-left break which never materialised.

His tee-shot on the notorious, short 17th wasn't made any easier by the fact that playing partner Bob Tway was in the water ahead of him. But Harrington concentrated all the more on a safe nine-iron and was delighted to escape with a two-putt par.

At the end of it all, he had found two balls and lost none: a tidy day's work.