In-form Webster misses out

Steve Webster, one of the European Tour’s most in-form players, was a non-starter at the Nissan Irish Open today – because of severely blistered feet.

The 30-year-old from England, who won his first professional title at the Italian Open two weeks ago and was fifth in the British Masters last Sunday, pulled out after the pro-am on the tough Colin Montgomerie-designed Carton House course, west of Dublin.

According to a tour spokesperson, Webster very nearly did not play at the Forest of Arden last week because of the problem.

It deals a severe blow to his chances of qualifying for the US Open at Pinehurst next month.

Webster lies seventh on the European Tour order of merit with almost £300,000 (€435,900) and the top two – currently South Africans Retief Goosen and Ernie Els – earn spots in the US Open following next week’s BMW Championship at Wentworth.

Top amateur ahead of Tiger Woods in the 1995 Open at St Andrews, the former England international has played in only one major since, missing the halfway cut back at the same course five years ago.

Local player Stephen Browne, who came through the qualifying school last November, was the one to benefit from Webster’s withdrawal.

He was going to be thrust into the limelight whether he liked it or not because his partners were Northern Ireland’s Graeme McDowell and Ryder Cup captain Ian Woosnam.

Underlining just how fierce a test Montgomerie has come up with this week, it was almost an hour into the event that the first birdie came.

The designer was one of the first onto the “inland links”, as he has called it, and opened with a par four at the 465-yard 10th, while just ahead of him Padraig Harrington, suffering from a stiff neck this week, bogeyed the 477-yard 11th.

Five of the par-fours are over 450 yards and the four par-fives measure from 513 to 605 yards.

First man to dip under par were Spanish rookie Gonzalo Fernandez-Castano, who birdied the short third, and then Wales’s Stephen Dodd and Dutchman Maarten Lafeber, who both began with threes at the 10th.