Golf German MastersPadraig Harrington, with next week's Ryder Cup uppermost in his thoughts, emerged from a run of indifferent form with an outstanding 66, six under par, in the first round of the Linde German Masters yesterday, to lead by a shot from the German Alex Cejka and by two from a group that includes another Ryder Cup man, Paul Casey of England.
The Irishman's pursuit of perfection is so relentless that he had laser surgery on his left eye last Saturday, scorning the notion that he should have been more cautious before the Ryder Cup.
"I only had one done," he said. "It meant that I had one good eye and I think the reality is that, if it doesn't work so quickly, you just wear a contact lens. The one thing I don't want is average.
"I am quite prepared to take a risk to get past average because average just doesn't cut it on the Tour. You are always looking to get that little bit more. So, if I had average eyesight and somebody told me I could have better eyesight, I'd jump at the better eyesight. I also wanted to putt better."
The better putting was certainly in evidence yesterday. Harrington had only 25 putts on a day when a tricky breeze, wasp-waisted fairways and some rumpled rough made the Gut Larchenhof course a completely different animal from the pussycat it had been in previous seasons.
Last year K J Choi won with 26 under and Fredrik Jacobson opened with a round of 60 but those look like unattainable figures now as players struggled to adjust.
Harrington and Casey, who will make his debut at Oakland Hills, were the best of the Ryder Cuppers and Thomas Levet and Darren Clarke, minus bandage and twinges in his wrist, also broke par, with 70 and 71 respectively.
Colin Montgomerie finished birdie, birdie, birdie, bogey for a battling 73 and headed for the range to sort out his driving.
"It's a rhythm thing," the Scot said after hitting only seven of 14 fairways, bad for him but above average for the field.
Miguel Angel Jimenez managed a 75 and Ian Poulter and Paul McGinley had 76s. At least they finished. Ian Woosnam, playing with Jimenez, was one under par playing his last hole, the ninth, but failed to complete and was disqualified, departing the premises covered in mud.
The Welshman had hit his second shot at the 469-yard par-four into the lake to the right of the green and dropped a shot under penalty. The bank is so shaven that the ball would not stick, so, after two drops as per the rules, Woosnam placed the ball.
He then moved some distance away to make his practice swings but, before he could return to the ball, it had rolled off its precarious perch back into the water.
Woosnam had a couple of hacks, then picked the ball up and conceded defeat. "I might have gotten an eight out of it," he said, "but I wasn't in the mood to carry on."
Harrington had no such alarms in a round that featured seven birdies and only one bogey. He conceded that his play was far from perfect but he had travelled here armed with a book called Golf Is Not A Game Of Perfect by the American sports psychologist Bob Rotella and had spoken to Rotella for two hours the night before in a transatlantic telephone call that seemed to sort out the Dubliner's head.
Harrington may be ranked eighth in the world but he missed the cut on his last outing, in Munich, finished 74th in the NEC Invitational in Ohio and 45th in the US PGA Championship, so the last few weeks had been an orgy of family summit meetings and consultations with his coach Bob Torrance.
"There was a lot of gnashing of teeth trying to find the answer," the perfectionist player said.
"I felt that I was swinging it great but I found it very hard to accept when I hit a bad shot. Today I hit plenty of bad shots out there but it didn't bother me in the least."
(Irish in bold, British unless stated)
66 - P Harrington.
67 - A Cejka (Ger).
68 - N O'Hern (Aus), R Jacquelin (Fra), R Green (Aus), G Owen, P Casey, L Oosthuizen (SA).
69 - G McDowell, R Muntz (NL), A Wall, JM Olazabal (Spn), B Land, G Murphy.
70 - R Derksen (NZl), M Farry (Fr), T Immelman (SA), P Broadhurst, T Levet (Fr), A Cabrera (Arg), D J Geall, A Forsyth.
71 - B Rumford (Aus), C Schwartzel (SA), G Orr, D Clarke, P O'Malley (Aus), R Russell, E Simsek (Ger), K Choi (Kor), S Hansen (Den), T Göegele (Ger), K Eriksson (Swe).
72 - A Hansen (Den), J Lupprian (Ger), P Hedblom (Swe), J Haeggman (Swe), M Siem (Ger), J Lomas, J Moseley (Aus), S Dodd, G Havret (Fra), M Campbell (NZ), T Hamilton (US), S Wakefield, C Cévaër (Fr), R Rock, N Dougherty, A Coltart, T Dier (Ger).
73 - M Vibe-Hastrup (Den), M Fraser (Aus), E Canonica (Ita), D Borrego (Spn), I Garrido (Sp), M Brier (Aut), N Fasth (Swe), P Sjöland (Swe), J Spence, P Baker, G Emerson, C Montgomerie), P Price, K Ferrie, S Drummond, D Fichardt (SA), S Webster, B Davis, D Gilford, B Langer (Ger), A Oldcorn, C Rocca (Ita).
74 - JF Remsey (Fra), M Foster, S Luna (Spn), P Fulke (Swe), J Clément (Swi), C Rodiles (Spn), H Otto (SA), I Pyman, F Andersson (Swe), S Khan, T Bjorn (Den), S Scahill (NZ), M Maritz (SA), T Schuster (Ger), T Jaidee (Tha).
75 - M Ilonen (Fin), P Lima (Fra), B Dredge), P Lawrie, Peter Lawrie, J Kingston (SA), M Blackey, MA Jiménez (Spn), J Edfors (Swe), N Colsaerts (Bel), R Karlsson (Swe), S Struver (Ger), M Olande (Swe), E Romero (Arg), M Roe.
76 - A Tadini (Ita), M Tunnicliff, C Guenther (Ger), A Marshall, I Poulter, R Coles, D Lynn, D Park, P McGinley, C Reimbold (Ger), R McEvoy.
77 - R Sterne (SA), S Richardson, S Gallacher, R Gonzalez (Arg), S Kjeldsen (Den), M Lafeber (NL), P Fowler (Aus).
78 - S Lyle, M Haremza (Ger), H Stenson (Swe), J Sandelin (Swe).
79 - C Hanell (Swe), P Golding.
80 - R Chapman, W Ormsby (Aus).
81 - A Forsbrand (Swe).
83 - P Eales.
