McGinley's rotten rounds continue

It did not take long for Paul McGinley’s confidence to take another battering when the Smurfit European Open began at the K Club near Dublin today.

The Ryder Cup Irishman, returning from a two-week break to try to recharge his batteries, double-bogeyed his opening hole and then dropped another shot at the next.

McGinley confessed to feeling "like a boxer throwing punches and not hitting the target" in the last couple of months and put it down to mental fatigue caused by six trips to America already this season.

He was hoping that taking his family to Portugal for a mid-season holiday - and missing the Irish Open for the first time in his professional career - might do the trick.

But McGinley hooked his first drive up against the out of bounds wall, chopped it only a few feet from there and was still in rough short of the green after two more strokes on the 584-yard 10th.

A pitch and run to eight feet drew applause from his home fans, but after missing the putt his head dropped again and pushing his next drive into sand led to him slumping to three over.

That was five behind the early pacesetter - none other than his cup captain Sam Torrance.

The 48-year-old Scot, playing in the group ahead, birdied the 10th and 12th to be one ahead of a group which included 47-year-old Australian Greg Norman and Ryder Cup Swede Niclas Fasth, one of the three players beaten by Dane Soren Hansen in the play-off for the Murphy's Irish Open on Sunday.

Colin Montgomerie, plagued by more back problems last week but determined to get in two more tournaments before the Open at Muirfield in a fortnight, parred his first three holes, as did Padraig Harrington.

But Lee Westwood struggled for his par on the long 10th, then paid for a wayward approach to the 11th and bogeyed.