Fab Four wait in the wings

It was not quite the leaderboard the scriptwriters had in mind for this Irish Open on this most iconic of courses but Ireland’s Fab Four are fired up to make much more of an impression heading into today’s second round.

Pádraig Harrington and the three Northern musketeers, Rory McIlroy, Graeme McDowell and Darren Clarke, are Major winners all and still in contention after an opening round at Royal Portrush that lived up to all the hype of a first European Tour sell-out.

Yet it is Gregory Bourdy of France and India’s Jeev Milkha Singh who top the leaderboard after a day of changing conditions that never quite produced the terrible weather that had been forecast.