Seve gets the cold shoulder

The weather was ideal, but the crowd was not for the start of the Seve Trophy match between Nick Faldo's Britain and Ireland team and the Continental Europe side led by Seve Ballesteros.

With no Irish players in the team at The Heritage in Co Laois - Padraig Harrington withdrew with fatigue and Faldo chose to overlook any Irish player when selecting his wildcards - signs approaching the course of 'Traffic Queues Possible' could easily have been replaced with 'Traffic Queues Unlikely'.

Only around 100 people followed the opening fourballs, Scots Colin Montgomerie and Marc Warren against Swedes Peter Hanson and Robert Karlsson, and there were barely 50 for the match behind involving Spaniards Miguel Angel Jimenez and Gonzalo Fernandez-Castano and the Welsh-English pairing of Bradley Dredge and Phillip Archer.

Previews of the contest, which might have boosted the attendance figures, had been overshadowed by the resignation of McGinley as one of Faldo's assistant captains for next year's Ryder Cup.

Although Faldo and the Dubliner said it was because he wanted to focus on trying to win a fourth cap as a player — he has not had a top 20 finish for almost a year — people were inevitably left thinking it might have something to do with his non-involvement this week.

It was reported McGinley — who failed to qualify by right — was led to believe that he would be given a wild card. He had even made himself unavailable for Ireland's World Cup qualifying trip to Aruba this week.

So to discover he was not in Faldo's line-up will surely have come as a disappointment.

On the course, Faldo's team lost the opening fourballs 3-2 and the Continentals looked set for an even bigger lead until England's Graeme Storm sank an 18-foot birdie putt on the final green of the final match.

That gave Storm and Nick Dougherty victory over Danes Soren Hansen and Thomas Bjorn.

The only other home winners were Welshman Bradley Dredge and England's Phillip Archer. They beat Spaniards Miguel Angel Jimenez and Gonzalo Fernandez-Castano two and one.

By then, however, Ballesteros's side were already 2-0 up.

Scots Colin Montgomerie and Marc Warren lost to Swedes Robert Karlsson and Peter Hanson, who were out in 29 and a dazzling 11 under par for the 17 holes, and an out-of-form Paul Casey and Simon Dyson went down four and three to French pair Raphael Jacquelin and Gregory Havret.

Justin Rose and Oliver Wilson then became losers as well, beaten three and two by Austrian Markus Brier and Finn Mikko Ilonen.

The match continues with five more fourballs tomorrow, then greensomes and foursomes on Saturday and 10 singles on Sunday. Like the Ryder Cup, 28 points are at stake.