PÁDRAIG HARRINGTON had circled his ball on the 10th tee like a panther sizing up his prey. He moved the tee peg two or three times, before a figure moving behind him caught his eye – and he watched as Sergio Garcia, due to play in the group behind throughout the first round, skipped to the tent adjacent to the tee box which housed the bananas and drinks that players stash into their bags for a long day at the office.

On his way into the tent, Garcia made an exaggerated move as if to fall on Martin Kaymer, who was already sheltering in the tent. Harrington allowed himself a little smile, before refocusing on the job at hand.

It was his time, and as the announcer – at 11.16 am, three hours and 16 minutes later than the original tee time – called him to arms with the words, “On the tee from Dublin, Ireland, please welcome the 2008 PGA champion Pádraig Harrington.”

A swing of a three-wood later, and he was off and running. Well, maybe not running.

For Harrington had an eventful opening, pitching up and down from the rough in front of the green for par on his first hole (the 10th) and then suffering a bogey on the next, the 11th, where he overshot the green with his approach and failed to get up and down.

Playing alongside Davis Love III and John Daly – dressed in a diamond-checked ensemble of orange and white – Harrington’s quest to get his hands once again on the Wanamaker Trophy, which he claimed at Oakland Hills in 2008, was to prove typically eventful as he alternated finding the middle of the fairways with some wayward shots which required rescuing from the fescue grasses in the sand hills.

Any threesome with Daly in the mix has its entertainment value. Not long into the round, Daly got wolf whistles as he walked down the fairway, along with a shout from the galleries of, “I want to have your baby!”

Daly’s girlfriend, Anna Cladakis, dressed in an outfit to exactly match that of the golfer, and who walked every step of the round outside the ropes, couldn’t help but hear.

She didn’t bat an eyelid.

Harrington didn’t have to deal with any such comments from the large galleries, with “Come on Paddy” about the extent of the encouragement from the galleries and his only birdie of his front nine came on the 14th, where he rolled in a 12-footer to offset the bogey he’d picked up at the second.

After that, it got interesting.

On the 518 yards par four 15th, Harrington pulled his drive some 20 yards left into the fescue and deliberated on what club to play – changing his mind at least three times – before deciding that a sensible mid-iron rather than the valour of a hybrid was the right option.

It proved to be, as he played up 100 yards short of the green and then got up and down, holing a 12-footer for par, to stop from moving into reverse.

On the 223 yards 17th, though, Harrington’s Houdini exploits came to an end. There, he pulled his tee-shot left – immediately cringing on the hitting the shot – which finished up in the rocks on the shore of Lake Michigan.

He opted to play the ball, rather than taking a penalty drop, but could only move it some 12 yards where it finished at the bottom of a 45-foot high embankment.

He couldn’t even see the flag, with his caddie, Ronan Flood, dispatched to hold the pin high above his shoulders so that the player got an idea of where to hit the ball.

In the end, his recovery failed to find the green and Harrington was left to chip and putt for a double bogey five which was followed by a bogey on the 18th.

Already, Harrington – who missed the cut in the Masters and the British Open – had found himself locked in a battle for survival and in a position where his quest for another Major was in danger of being over before it ever got started.