McGinley looks for help with allergies

Paul McGinley’s return to the Masters has begun with him seeking further help for allergies after nine holes of practice when his legs “felt like jelly“.

The 39-year-old Dubliner, 18th on his one previous appearance at Augusta, in 2002, has been suffering since arriving in America for the Players Championship two weeks ago.

McGinley missed the cut at Sawgrass after cutting short his final practice round because of how he felt and he sneezed his way round the front nine today.

“Even though I was given some medicine it’s no better yet, so I’m going to see another doctor here,” he said. “My legs felt like jelly out there – it was horrible.”

McGinley, later prescribed a nasal spray, had the best season of his career last year, winning the Volvo Masters and finishing runner-up in two more of Europe’s biggest events, the BMW Championship and HSBC Match Play.

They helped him finish third on the Order of Merit with more than £1.6m (2.3m), but this will be only the 11th time he has played in a major in America in a professional career going back 15 years.

Defending champion Tiger Woods was among those out practising, easing worries that he would not be able to go for a fifth title because of the health of his father, who is battling cancer.

The world number one flew from Florida to California two days before the Players Championship after there had been a deterioration, but returned in time for the event.

He did not finish in the top 20, however, and while he remains favourite for the first major of the season, Phil Mickelson’s astonishing 13-stroke win in Atlanta on Sunday has inevitably brought down the odds on him regaining the title he won two years ago.