Harrington starts well in BellSouth

Padraig Harrington and Luke Donald began the final warm-up event for the Masters in impressive style today. Playing partners for the first 36 holes of the BellSouth Classic in Atlanta, the Ryder Cup team-mates posted four-under-par rounds of 68.

It gave them a share of the early clubhouse lead, although out on the TPC at Sugarloaf course Australian Gavin Coles was four strokes clear of the field at eight-under after sinking a 189-yard bunker shot for an eagle two.

Harrington's three at the long 18th could be said to be the lesser of two eagles. The Dubliner only just made it over the lake, but then rolled home a putt of 56 feet.

That was his ninth hole and after bogeying the short second Harrington sank birdie putts of seven and eight feet on the third and sixth to move into contention at an event where he finished fourth two years ago and eighth in 2002.

Like Harrington, Donald missed the halfway cut at the Players Championship last week, but in his case he was suffering from 'flu-symptoms which he has now been told might be caused by allergies.

Because of that, the winner of the Honda Classic three weeks ago took some medicine before his 7.20am start, and afterwards admitted it made him feel a bit shaky early on.

Yet he holed from almost 45 feet at the short 11th, their second, and five more birdies followed, including a superb closing drive and seven-iron to eight feet on the difficult 472-yard ninth.

With Retief Goosen, the third member of the group, scoring 69, Donald said: "We had some momentum between us and overall it was a good round."

Not looking too far ahead Harrington commented: "I'm only thinking about the result here right now. There's no point thinking about the Masters yet, especially when you've made a pretty decent start here."

Swede Henrik Stenson, third at Sawgrass on Sunday, can start turning his thoughts to his Augusta debut, however. Stenson double-bogeyed two of his first three holes and with a five-over-par 77 brought up the rear of the field midway through the day's play.

Defending champion Phil Mickelson, David Howell and Ian Poulter were among the later starters, but Graeme McDowell and Justin Rose, who like Poulter have missed out on the Masters, could do no better than 73 and 74 respectively.