Pádraig Harrington goes from hero to zero after opening round 76 at Valspar Championship

Pádraig Harrington plunged from the penthouse to the basement in his very first competitive round since capturing the Honda Classic.

Harrington was lying second last with a shock five over par 76 early on the opening day of the $US 5.9m Valspar Championship in Tampa Bay. He had returned to Florida’s Sunshine State buoyed by a play-off victory in capturing a second Honda Classic title that also ended a seven-year PGA Tour winning drought.

But 10 days on and Harrington is already staring at missing the cut on the Innisbrook Copperhead course. Harrington opened his round with a double bogey after finding rough well right of the fairway at the 10th from where he was forced to chip some 22 yards back out the fairway, and when he found the green in three, he three putted from 14 feet.

He then found himself three over par with a bogey at his second before the first of just three birdies in his round at the 14th at his fifth hole. However after taming ‘The Bear Trap’ in winning the Honda Classic the triple major winner was stung at the ‘Snake Pit’, the three closing holes of the Valspar course, in taking bogey at his eighth and ninth holes.

Harrrington managed to birdie his 10th but took a second double bogey of his round when he was in the rough and some 45-feet from the hole at the par three fourth or his 13th but then taking a further four shots to get up-and-down.

He posted a birdie at the next ahead of a bogey at his 16th.

Only fellow Open Champion, John Daly was lower on the leader board with the American shooting a 10-over par 81. And Daly’s been in hot water with the PGA Tour over slamming the Tour’s anti-doping procedures as a ‘joke’.

Daly is coming off a 10th place finish in last week’s Puerto Rico Open, and a first top-10 result in some three years.

However golf’s ‘grip it and rip it’ star let rip at the Tour over a drugs-testing policy he says advises players before they are to be tested, and thus given them time to clean up their act.

“So it’s not random; it’s a big a joke,” said Daly speaking on a radio programme. “This whole drug testing is a joke.”

“I know when I’m getting drug tested,” he said. “That’s sad . . . And for you dopers and all that crap on the PGA Tour, you know you’re getting drug tested, you got it made! And I’m tired of it.”

And Daly had a message for PGA Tour Commissioner Tim Finchem and the Tour’s Chief of Operations Andy Pazder.

“Andy Pazder, if you listen to this show, you and Tim Finchem get off your ass and get it right,” said Daly.

Meanwhile Denmark’s Morten Orum Madsen shot a hole-in-one in a remarkable eagle-eagle finish to claim a share of the lead at the Tshwane Open in South Africa.

England’s David Horsey matched his seven-under-par 63 to join him at the top of the leaderboard after the first round at Pretoria Country Club.