GOLF: Golf pays scant regard to the adage about never kicking a man when he is down - as Lee Westwood found when he limped to an 81 in yesterday's Algarve Portuguese Open first round.

His nine-over-par effort plunged him 17 strokes behind the Swede Fredrik Jacobson, who edged two clear of England's Greg Owen, who had an eight-birdie blast that helped him to a 66.

Best of the Irish was Graeme McDowell, who was tied fifth after a two-under-par 70, while Philip Walton can take encouragement from a solid 71 for tied 10th.

Peter Lawrie opened with a 74, Stephen Browne was one shot further back while Ronan Rafferty and Gary Murphy signed for 76s.

The former European number one Westwood had predicted his slump to 237th in the world rankings might have been ended by David Leadbetter, the Floridian who rebuilt Nick Faldo's swing. But it was back to the drawing board as an early double-bogey six nudged him towards a four-over-par outward score.

Just when he thought things could not get worse, Westwood started home with an eight at a par-four. He pulled his drive into a bunker and his recovery out of bounds, then his ball plugged when he took a penalty drop back in the sand. He could only splash out and ended up fluffing a chip.

Westwood's solitary birdie at the 12th was instantly cancelled out by another double-bogey six en route to a second nine of 42.

To his credit there were no excuses. "If I hadn't had any luck I wouldn't have broken 90," Westwood confessed. "I haven't analysed what went wrong yet. I'd already had a triple and five double-bogeys before this week. Now I've had a quadruple. I'm getting better, aren't I?

"Would you like me to be optimistic or full of gloom? I've learned to accept it when it's bad. I'm not going to wave a magic wand and all of a sudden play well.

"When you shoot 81 there's nothing you can do, is there? It felt miles away today. The course doesn't inspire me. The greens are uneven and the footprints aren't coming out of them. It's a good job the wind didn't blow."

Jacobson's long game was not much more impressive.

He admitted: "Two or three times I made birdies coming out of the trees.

"I've been out of action for 10 weeks with an injured left wrist.

"I'm amazed to shoot 64 because this was just meant to be a warm-up, but winning my first tournament in Hong Kong at the end of last year was good for my confidence."