Van de Velde excels on comeback

Jean van de Velde was today hoping it was fourth time lucky as he made a successful return to action in the Portuguese Open.

Van de Velde has been plagued by a knee injury for more than two years and has twice undergone reconstructive surgery.

He made three attempts to return to the European Tour on a medical exemption last season but missed the cut in eight of his 14 tournaments and was in too much pain to attempt to earn his card at the qualifying school.

As a result the popular Frenchman has to rely on invites to compete on tour, a situation which would have been avoided if he had taken anything less than a triple-bogey seven on the final hole at Carnoustie in 1999.

Victory in the Open championship, which eventually went to Paul Lawrie in a play-off, would have given van de Velde a 10-year exemption.

“This will be my fourth comeback but when I have come back previously the knee has only been around 50 to 60% which was not strong enough,” he said.

“Now I would say it is at 80% and I have to follow a certain programme of training and exercises but I think I am ready to play.”

That certainly looked the case as van de Velde, unusually starting from the eighth rather than the 10th due to the layout of the course, picked up three birdies in a row from the 11th.

In a testing breeze, that was briefly good enough for a share of the lead alongside Sweden’s Henrik Nystrom, before a bogey on the 15th dropped him back into a tie for second.

Nystrom, playing the course in the more orthodox fashion, had gone to the turn in 34 and birdied the 10th to lead on three under par.

He was one shot clear of a six-strong group of players which included England’s Nick Dougherty, one of the pre-tournament favourites following his excellent early-season form.

Dougherty, who won his maiden tour title in Singapore, opened with five pars before a run of three birdies and a bogey on four holes.

Philip Walton is the only one of the Irish competitors to have started his round. He is on four over after five holes.

Peter Lawrie is due to tee of at lunchtime. Stephen Browne, Damien McGrane and Gary Murphy will all tee off on the next two hours.

The tournament was going ahead despite a dispute over environmental issues between host club Quinta da Marinha and the European Tour. Just two days ago the hosts were insisting that areas containing protected species of animals and plants should be off limits.

Quinta da Marinha’s marketing boss Nuno Mota said: “We were not happy because our rules were not being respected. On Tuesday we had two choices – either allow the players to use the areas which have rare animals and plants or call the whole thing off.

“We wanted the tournament to go ahead and everyone to be happy, so we have made an exception to the rules.”

Because a European Tour event cannot be bound by local rules, tour officials claim they had no option but to insist on them being waived.

Tournament director Mikael Eriksson said: “The European Tour are always very conscious of environmental issues. But after consultation with the club president, it was agreed that we would not play under Quinta da Marinha Oitavos local rules.”