Richardson struggles again

There was no happy return for Steve Richardson to the Spanish course where his career took off today.

Eleven years ago Richardson won the Girona Open at Pals – beating Colin Montgomerie and Darren Clarke amongst others – to launch a season which ended with him a Ryder Cup player and second to Seve Ballesteros on the European Order of Merit with over £500,000.

But the Hampshire player has dropped off the golfing map since then and now finds himself making his fifth successive attempt to come through the tour qualifying school.

An opening four over par 76 was hardly what he had in mind, however. It left him 11 strokes behind Scotland’s Barry Hume, who still had three holes to play.

“I’m battling, but it’s about all I’ve got now,” sighed the 36-year-old. “If I was the same player I was when I won here I wouldn’t be here now, but I just don’t hit it well when the gun goes off.

“Years of bad golf have done that to me. I started okay, but then absolutely collapsed and couldn’t hit it at all.”

One under par after eight holes, he drove into the trees and then three-putted for a bogey six on the 18th, then three-putted the first and hit such a wild drive at the 361-yard third that it clattered into trees and finished only 100 yards ahead of him.

That cost Richardson a double bogey six and failing to get up and down from sand on the ninth meant another dropped shot.

Hume, who briefly led the British Masters as an amateur earlier this year, grabbed six birdies in a superb outward 30. He then birdied the 10th as well before five pars followed.

At Emporda, the other course being used, play began nearly two hours late because bunkers flooded by an overnight storm had to be made playable again.

The first round was not expected to be completed before dark, which created complications with the players due to switch courses tomorrow for the second of the six rounds.