Poulter and Monty face early struggle

The richest event in golf failed to bring the best out of Ian Poulter and Colin Montgomerie in rainy Florida today.

The two Ryder Cup team-mates – one needing to finish in the top three to qualify for the Masters, the other trying to avoid the worst run of results of his career – could do no better than level par 72s when the £5m Players Championship began at Sawgrass.

While American stars Davis Love and Jim Furyk, playing together, posted seven under par 65s to lead by two from Australian Robert Allenby, Poulter and Montgomerie both finished with bogey sixes.

The Scot, in danger now of a fourth successive missed cut, was not in the mood to talk much afterwards – “I’m just not playing very well,” he said.

But Poulter did not mind revealing a frustration which he did well to keep a lid on.

The Milton Keynes player said: “I feel like taking my putter into the car park and giving it a right good thrashing.

“I am playing great, but I’m just not making any putts. I’ve tried to change the putter a couple of times, but I’ve had it for three and a half years, won the Volvo Masters with it and I keep giving it another chance. I’m not sure how many more I’ll give it, though.”

And when asked if he might take it back to his hotel room to work on his stroke he added: “If I did that I think I might smash the room up.”

Poulter, without a win for 17 months and with a round of 82 at Bay Hill last week, twice got up and down from bunkers at par fives on the back nine to turn in 35 and after bogeying the fifth came back with a superb birdie.

He drove into more sand on the difficult seventh, but from there struck a five-iron to eight feet.

However, he followed that by coming up short of the ninth green in another bunker and failed to get up and down.

On the same hole Montgomerie was bunkered in two, clipped a tree with his attempted recovery and took three more from just short of the green.

Of the early European starters Jose Maria Olazabal did best with a four under 68, which left him in a tie for fourth place.

Londoner Brian Davis thanked television commentator Ewen Murray after matching the two under 70 of Sergio Garcia and Phil Mickelson.

Davis has had his struggles at the start of this year, but a lesson with former European tour player Murray brought the desired results immediately.

He said: “He got me to turn my right shoulder more and the first iron shot I hit today felt good and set the round up.

“I’ve had no confidence all year (after taking a break following surgery for skin cancer), but have been putting good, thank God. Without that I would not have been breaking 80.

“The key was missing, but hopefully I’ve found it now with Ewen’s help.”

Mickelson’s 70 came despite a double bogey five at the island green 17th – a whole which has bad memories for the left-hander. In his previous two visits he put three balls into the lake and one more followed on his return.

Greg Owen and Tiger Woods were central characters in the afternoon action as people watched to see how they would react to what has happened in the past week.

Owen lost the Bay Hill Invitational by one after a nightmare double bogey, bogey finish, but the Mansfield golfer bounced back with three successive birdies in his first four holes, the last of them a near hole-in-one at the short 13th.

He did then three-putt the long 16th for a bogey six, missing from three feet as he had twice in a row four days before, but a 40-footer from the fringe of the 532-yard second lifted him back to three under and into a tie for seventh.

Woods was back at Sawgrass for the first round after making a 4,000-mile round trip to California, where his 74-year-old father Earl is battling cancer.

The world number one birdied the long second, then bogeyed the fourth, seventh and eighth, but got back to one over with another birdie at the ninth.

Luke Donald, winner of the Honda Classic on his last appearance two weeks ago and runner-up to Fred Funk last year, double-bogeyed the fifth after driving into water and was down alongside Woods after six holes.

It was not proving a good day for Darren Clarke either. Third last week and paired with Woods the Ulsterman, whose wife Heather is also fighting cancer, turned in 39 and when another bogey came on the 10th he was four over.

Twice runner-up Padraig Harrington stood level par after eight and Lee Westwood one over after four holes.