McDowell, McGinley well placed in Spain

Ireland's Graeme McDowell and Paul McGinley are tied in eighth place on -2 at the Spanish Open in Madrid.

Darren Clarke is languishing on +3 in 128th place, while amateur Rory McIlroy is five over.

David Higgins (-1), Peter Lawrie (+4), Damien McGrane (par) and Gary Murphy (-1) are also all in action.

Meanwhile, England's Kenneth Ferrie soon discovered he had done the right thing by getting up early when the Spanish Open resumed today.

The former European Open champion had a chance to finish his opening round last night, but decided to take his time and instead resume at 8.30am this morning.

It paid off when he hit a nine-iron to 15 feet and holed the putt on his first hole, the 442-yard eighth, then parred the next for a three under par 69 that left him only two behind France’s Gregory Bourdy.

Ferrie, whose last round was an 83 that sent him tumbling out of his Masters debut at Augusta three weeks ago, had been two over after seven holes yesterday, so it represented a fine comeback.

“I had a bit of a dodgy start, but I’m playing nicely and I kept my patience,” said the English golfer.

“The eighth was one of the harder holes to come back to and I was dreading it being into the wind and driving rain, but when we turned up it was downwind and sunny.

“I could have rushed and made a mess of things (as several others did), but we got it right this time.”

Bourdy, another of those unable to finish last night after almost eight hours was lost to rain earlier in the day, also birdied the eighth and that took him one ahead of the overnight clubhouse leader, American Notah Begay, England’s Graeme Storm and Spain’s Luis Claverie.

Ferrie was in joint fourth place with Gareth Davies, Australian Terry Pilkadaris and Spaniard Carlos Del Moral.

Half the field, including defending champion Niclas Fasth, were only just starting their first rounds after not hitting a single shot yesterday.

They faced the prospect of 36 holes in the day, while Bourdy, Ferrie, Storm and Begay were not likely to start their second rounds until early evening. The same applied to Ryder Cup pair Paul McGinley and Darren Clarke, who shot 70 and 75 respectively on the opening day.

Like Ferrie, Scotland’s Stephen Gallacher had two holes to complete when he set off again, but he bogeyed them both to fall back to one under.