Nightmare start for Monty
Ireland’s top two of Padraig Harrington and Darren Clarke fared better, but made relatively slow starts.
Clark’s level-par 72 was achieved in an unconventional manner, and he was left to rue falling from three-under with three holes to play.
His round was a rollercoaster, with birdies on the second, ninth, 10th, 14th and 15th being negated by dropped shots on the sixth, seventh, and final hole, and a double bogey on the 16th.
Harrington finished the day alongside his Ryder Cup team-mate on level-par.
Montgomerie’s day began badly when he became embroiled in a row with a tournament official who had not recognised the European Ryder Cup hero when he arrived without a parking pass.
Then Montgomerie thought he had recorded a triple-bogey seven at the 411-yard opener only for a scorer to rule he had breached the rules, resulting in a further one-shot penalty.
What Montgomerie thought of the decision is anyone’s guess as he refused to attend a post-round press conference.
However, chief rules official Dennis Bruyns explained the mix-up afterwards, pointing to a scorer who had seen the ball move as Montgomerie was about to play his second shot on the first hole.
“The ball had landed under a bush from his tee shot in an almost unplayable condition. In fact, he Montgomerie even considered declaring it as such,” said Bruyns.
“The ball was rested against a leaf or a twig and Montgomerie was unsighted once he addressed the ball so he didn’t see the ball in the bush and he took his backswing and hit and made some sort of contract with the ball.
“The scorer who was accompanying the group reported to us that, as Colin took his shot, the ball moved and
Colin continued with the shot and hit the ball,” said Bruyns.
“Rule 18 basically states that if you have begun your swing, if the ball moves and you continue to hit the ball you do not get penalised for hitting a moving ball unless you have done something to cause the ball to move.
“However, we believe he caused the ball to move because of his backswing through the leaves and the bush.
“When we went through all the facts in the scorers’ caravan, we advised him of the incident and he said he was unsighted. He said to the scorer if he saw it move, then it must have moved.”
The top of the leaderboard has a familiar look, with local hero Retief Goosen making the best use of a new driving iron to take a share of the lead.
Goosen carded a four-under-par 68, the same score as American Chris DiMarco, with US star Jim Furyk one shot off the pace and pre-tournament favourites Ernie Els and defending champion Sergio Garcia two shots adrift.
Australian Robert Allenby also recorded a 70 to join Els and Garcia in joint fourth. Garcia put in a late charge with birdies on the 14th and 16th to close the lead to one but then left a monster putt short and missed the follow-up from five feet to drop back to two-under for the round.
A 13-year-old Taiwanese boy became the youngest person ever to play on the European Tour. Shortly after 12.30 local time, Lo Shih-Kai achieved that honour when he teed off in the opening round in Hong Kong.
Last month the slightly-built youngster won the Hong Kong Men’s Open Amateur Championship at Clearwater Bay, qualifying him for the tournament where he is rubbing shoulders with such golfing luminaries as Nick Faldo and Jose Maria Olazabal.
Meanwhile Nick Faldo found himself well down the leaderboard after the opening round of the Omega Hong Kong Open at Fanling on a day when the expected avalanche of birdies failed to materialise.
Little-known Indian Amandeep Johl outshone the stars to claim a one-shot lead.
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