Pain in Spain for Borrego

Diego Borrego’s hopes of joining Seve Ballesteros and Sergio Garcia as the only home winners of the Spanish Open since 1972 suffered a big setback at San Roque today.

After climbing into a two-stroke lead with birdies at the second and fifth the 33-year-old from nearby Marbella crashed to a quadruple-bogey eight on the 442-yard eighth.

Borrego, who lost his European tour card by four strokes over the same course in November, was in heavy rough off the tee, failed to get out and was still not on the green in three.

He then chipped long and four-putted from off the edge to drop all the way from four under to level par.

The lead was taken instead by qualifying school winner Peter Gustafsson, who with birdie twos at the 14th, 16th and third improved to four under, two ahead of fellow Swede Peter Hanson, Italian Emanuele Canonica and three more Spaniards - Miguel Angel Martin, Santiago Luna and Jose Rivero.

Of those Martin was the only early starter and the 41-year-old, best remembered for qualifying for the 1997 Ryder Cup and then being asked to stand down from the team because of injury, birdied the 11th in turning in 35.

The windy conditions had stopped anybody breaking 70 on the opening day and was again causing difficulties.

Defending champion Christian Cevaer ran up a double-bogey six on the second and at nine over with six to play was heading out of the event, while rising English star Nick Dougherty needed three birdies in four holes around the turn just to be six over and looked likely to miss his first cut of the season.

Scotland’s Steven O’Hara, one of the seven overnight leaders, did not manage a single birdie on the inward half, bogeys at the 13th and long 17th dropping him to level par alongside not only Borrego, but also 1999 Open runner-up Jean van de Velde.