Desperate Pádraig belly flops after trying long putter

Watching Pádraig Harrington use a belly putter for the first time is a bit like watching Picasso use a paint-by-numbers kit to produce Guernica — you know it’s wrong, but you just can’t look away.

Yesterday, less than 12 months after declaring his fervent opposition to a putting method that governing bodies plan to ban from January 2016, the 41-year old Dubliner took the brave step to do something about the balky putting stroke that has left him winless on the game’s top two Tours for close to five years.

His bravery went unrewarded as he crashed to a horrible, eight-over-par 80 in the opening round of the Wells Fargo Championship — his worst round on US soil since he shot a second round 80 in the US Open on Oakmont’s fearsome greens in 2007.