Harrington nicely positioned

FOR 14 holes at Olympia Fields yesterday, Pádraig Harrington looked every bit the potential US Open champion.

He was standing two under par for the first round and in apparent total control of his game. He seemed to have the golf ball on a string and was oozing confidence.

However, for reasons he later attributed to "tiredness and lack of focus" he struggled over the final four holes and needed at least one enormous slice of luck to get home in one under par 69, still his lowest opener in the Championship in six starts. He accepted that he would have taken that score before setting out but was also disappointed at not capitalising on the high quality of his golf over the first fourteen.

"I should have been three or four under at that stage but my putting wasn't up to it," he accepted. "I hadn't put myself under any pressure and felt at ease out there. You couldn't have asked for easier conditions, no wind, receptive greens and accessible pin positions with the exception of the 18th. I'm looking at them and thinking 'I could go at those pins' which is not normally the case at the US Open. But there's a long way to go, I'm nicely positioned and apart from hitting a few shots on the range, I'll take it nice and handy."

Harrington's feeling that he had underachieved had much to do with how well he struck the ball from the tee and how crisply he was punching his iron shots. True, he did miss the first fairway to the left, thereby scorning the birdie on offer at the 576 yards opener. He quickly compensated with a fifteen footer for birdie after a nine iron approach to the 2nd and picked up another shot with a five iron to twelve feet at the 5th.

The lay-out here at Olympia Fields is unusual in that the only two par fives are on the front nine but once again a visit to the rough put the green way out of reach for the Irishman at the 555 yards 6th. The putter let him down both at the 8th, where he missed from ten feet, and at the 496 yards 9th where a slightly mishit second left him with a putt of close on a hundred feet. He charged it a couple of yards by and missed the return.

Nevertheless, 35 to the turn was relatively satisfactory and to his credit Harrington immediately regained the stroke with a seven iron to ten feet at the 10th. He had chances at two of the next three before the first signs of pending trouble became apparent at the none too difficult downhill par three 15th. He missed the green to the left where his ball came to rest alongside a sprinkler head, meaning the rough in that spot was even thicker than usual. He was only four feet off the putting surface and had little or no green to work with. In other words impossible! Not so to Pádraig who related how he had worked hard on this shot in practice and he duly chopped the ball out to ten feet and sank the putt.

He was in even more serious trouble at the 16th where a blocked tee shot found a lie sufficiently favourable to allow him attack the green with a five wood. It came out low, fast and fiery and ran through the green into more heavy rough. This time, it was more the luck of the Irish than any great skill levels that saved him as the ball raced down the green almost certainly destined for the front bunker when it crashed against the flagstick and finished a foot away.

"How unlucky was I there?" he subsequently demanded with a broad grin. "It was always going to hit the stick. Seriously, though, you get good breaks and bad breaks in a US Open and you just take them and move on."

However, there was no reprieve at the 18th where he found the right rough off the tee and although he recovered to the front edge, took three more to get down as he missed from five feet for par. "Going into lunch with a finish like that always leaves a sour taste," he accepted although you couldn't help feeling that he was relatively satisfied with his day's work.

The sensational start of Englishman Brian Davis spread like wild fire around Olympia Fields. Having come through the qualifying stage last week, Davis decided to take part even though his wife is back in Harley Street undergoing a kidney operation. Undaunted, he pitched in for an eagle from sixty yards at the 1st and then birdied the next three to stand five under par after four holes. A double bogey at the 5th put a stop to his gallop but that's one golf stretch he won't forget for a long time!