Seve suffers bad start

Seve Ballesteros discovered little had changed on his return to competitive action after two months out in the BMW International Open.

Ballesteros has not played since being disqualified from the Irish Open in June for signing for a wrong score after running up a 12 on the final hole in his first round 89.

He immediately pulled out of the Open championship at Muirfield, ending his run of 27 consecutive appearances, and speculation was rife that he was contemplating ending a career which has brought him five major titles and more than 80 other victories worldwide.

The 45-year-old insisted yesterday the thought of hanging up his spikes had never crossed his mind, however, despite not having earned a single world ranking point in the last two years.

The five-time major winner was three under par in Wednesday’s pro-am and was looking forward to competing in the £1.2m (€1.88m) event north of Munich.

But it took only three holes for him to drop his first shot of the week this morning on a course where low scoring is the norm, 19 under being the average winning score of the event.

A bogey on the third left Ballesteros one over after six holes, already four shots behind the early leaders.

English duo Jonathan Lomas and Gary Clark were three under after nine holes, Lomas in the first group out from the 10th tee and Clark in the first group from the first.

Ballesteros at least had some distinguished company at the wrong end of the leaderboard, Ireland’s Padraig Harrington two over after five holes.

Harrington has been second twice in the event, including last year when he was 26 under par but lost out to John Daly by a shot when the former Open champion birdied the last to equal the European Tour low scoring record.

But the Dubliner is struggling with ankle and neck injuries which forced him to seek treatment on the course during the USPGA Championship two weeks ago, and dropped shots at the 10th and 14th.