Players serve up a free feast

If the decision to give away free tickets was a stroke of genius, resulting in record crowds clambering over the man-made hillocks that have developed here on what was once flat farmland, the act was suitably enhanced by the deeds of those inside the ropes in yesterday's first round of the Smurfit Kappa European Open over the Smurfit Course.

Unlike the recipients of the ticket giveaway, however, the players had to work hard to get any recompense. Some, such as Miguel Angel Jimenez, who took a quadruple bogey nine on the seventh, and Per-Ulrik Johansson, who had a quintuple bogey 10 on the 18th, were victims of the course's capacity to inflict pain and punishment.

But others - most notably Niclas Fasth and Bradley Dredge, who opened with seven-under-par 65s - managed to conquer it and edge closer to a big payday in this €3.4 million tournament.

On a day when the large, enthusiastic crowds brought a major feel to this tournament, no fewer than 57 players managed to beat par, which bore adequate testimony to the quality of golf on view. And those who teed off in the morning got the kinder conditions, as the later starters had to contend with rain showers and a stiffer breeze.

Fasth, who has genuine aspirations to regain the Ryder Cup place he held four years ago, but with some ground to make up if he is to achieve that ambition, and Dredge, who has an even greater task ahead to force his way into the team, finished the day with a one-shot lead over the in-form Paul Casey and Angel Cabrera.

Of the 15 Irish players in the field, only four managed to submit sub-par rounds when their signatures were scrawled on to cards in the recorder's cabin.

Darren Clarke, Damien McGrane and Graeme McDowell all signed for 69s, three under, while Padraig Harrington, feeling fatigued after an intensive run of tournaments over the past couple of months, had a 70.

"I struggled a lot," said Harrington. "I made a lot of mistakes on the greens. You know, I couldn't see one line all day, and that's a sure sign I was tired. I'd all kind of things going on in my head. I just couldn't commit to anything.

"This is probably a week too far, I've got to say. I was hoping when I got up this morning I was ready to go. I tried my hardest, but I wasn't ready to go."

But Harrington's 70, as he put it himself, was "not the end of the world. There's no harm done, no damage done to be honest. It was a round that definitely could have got away, and I'd to work very hard to ensure it didn't."

Clarke's best work was reserved for the finishing stretch, where he picked up three birdies in the last four holes. It could have been better, but for some missed short putts.

"I wasted three putts," remarked the Ulsterman, "from inside six feet. If I was competitively sharp, I'd probably have shot five or six-under. I made some silly bogeys, but it's because I'm not tournament sharp. That's all."

To his credit, Clarke persevered, urged on by huge galleries. "The crowds were fantastic, brilliant. It's much better to play in front of 20,000 people than 2,000 and these are the images of Irish golf that we want to send out on television around the world," he said.

Standing on the 15th tee, Clarke was level par and feeling like he'd received nothing from the course. But he rolled in a 15-footer for birdie on the 15th, and sank a similar putt on the 16th, a hole ranked as the second hardest (with a stroke average of 4.34) of the first round.

On the long 18th, where his playing partner, Kenneth Ferrie, drove into the water that runs up the left of the fairway, Clarke's drive nestled in thick rough just off the right.

"It was a horrific lie," he remarked. He could only chop the ball 80 yards down the fairway, leaving him with a seven-iron approach to a pin behind the bunker. He hit it to eight feet, and rolled in the putt for a feel-good finish.

Not everybody had reason to have fond memories of the 18th, though. Colin Montgomerie, for one, salvaged a bogey after putting his first drive into the water, while Johansson, a two-time winner of the European Open when it was staged across the Liffey on the Palmer Course, ran up that 10 on the finishing hole. Compatriot Joakim Backstrom took an eight.

Neither Fasth nor Dredge had any such problems, the pair assuming the first round lead but conscious that a large pack of pursuers won't let them have it all their own way. Both know, too, that the European Open's purse offers them a chance to make giant leaps up the Ryder Cup points list.

To do that, though, a win, rather than a near-miss, is required, and Fasth knows the hard work lies ahead. So do those in pursuit.