Harrington provides mixed bag at Travelers

Pádraig Harrington was under par but a little off the pace at the Travelers Championship as he returned to action last night following his US Open fourth-place finish.

Just four days after his impressive US Open performance at San Francisco’s Olympic Club, the three-time major champion shot an opening one-under-par 69 featuring four birdies, a bogey and a double bogey at TPC River Highlands in Connecticut that left him just five shots back on early leader David Mathis. American Mathis had aced the par-three 11th in his sparkling opening round of 64, which included six birdies.

* Paul McGinley, the 2002 Ryder Cup hero, kept up his recent run of good form by finishing the day joint third with Englishmen Chris Wood and Danny Willett on the opening day of the BMW International Open in Cologne.

On his way to shooting a sparkling 65, McGinley eagled the 577-yard 16th from 30 feet and then almost holed his approach to the difficult 456-yard last.

“It turned a good day into a great day,” McGinley said.

“In all my life, I don’t think I’ve been on that 16th in two before — that’s new technology for you.”

He finished the day one behind Marcus Fraser of Australia and Paraguay’s Fabrizio Zanotti.

* Alan Dunbar once again demonstrated the qualities that have made him such a force in golf as he defied the winter-like conditions to move into the quarter-finals of the Amateur Championship at Royal Troon yesterday.

The 22-year-old Walker Cup man from Rathmore was simply awesome in demolishing Denmark’s Patrick Winther by 7&6 but then had to pull out all the stops to get past Frenchman Paul Barjon on the home green.

Dunbar came to the last one up and settled the issue in clinical style with a birdie.