A forthright Paul McGinley stood no nonsense yesterday as his playing-partner Colin Montgomerie blamed the course, his equipment and Lady Luck for a couple of incidents which left the five-time European number one in disarray.

Montgomerie's ball scuttled into gorse and long grass at the seventh, their 16th, and resulted in a double-bogey after the Scot left his ball in the heavy stuff.

That was the fault of a bad bounce because of an inadequate sprinkler system, said Monty, who had watched in horror as his nine-iron approach missed the green before shooting into the waiting gorse.

He finished off the hole and slapped his putter on the ground. It's head came off. Monty had to play the last two holes with an eight-iron as his putter.

It certainly cost him the chance of a birdie on the last. His eight-iron caused him to come up three inches short from only eight feet for a 68 to lie eight strokes off the leader, compatriot Sam Torrance. Torrance who lead after the first round, again leads the field by two, this time on 10-under-par after a 70. Italian Massimo Florioli is second.

McGinley is nine shots behind Torrance after slipping back to one-under-par with a 72.

Of Montgomerie's double-bogey, he said: "It was just a terrible shot, not like Monty at all. "When you're hitting in with only a nine-iron and you miss the green, you're likely to have to suffer the consequences." Des Smyth is the nearest Irishman to Torrance. A 72 left the Drogheda man on three-under-par, seven off the pace.

Hard-luck story, this a real one as opposed to any suggested by a superstar, belonged to young Cameron Clark, though. He couldn't play yesterday after jarring his wrist badly while playing an impromptu game of soccer the night before.