Howell's poor form continues

David Howell’s miserable season continued today in the first round of the Mercedes-Benz Championship in Cologne.

Howell revealed last week he was treating the beginning of Ryder Cup qualifying as a fresh start, only to promptly miss the cut in the Omega European Masters.

The two-time Ryder Cup star reached number 12 in the world last year and led the Order of Merit for a large part of the season, helped by winning the European Tour’s flagship PGA Championship at Wentworth.

However, back and wrist injuries have hampered his progress in 2007 and he is currently 132nd on the Order of Merit and has plummeted to 84th in the world rankings.

The 32-year-old from Swindon has not enjoyed a top-20 finish all season and that again looked like being the case at Gut Larchenhof, even though the field is restricted to just 78 players.

In the first match out this morning, Howell – who fortunately qualified for the event from the top 75 on the world rankings on August 13 before his ranking continued to slide – opened with a par four but then ran up a quadruple bogey on the second.

After driving into bushes left of the fairway, Howell failed to hack the ball out at the first attempt and was forced to take a penalty drop. From there he found a bunker and after eventually reaching the green in six, two-putted for an eight.

A bogey on the third then dropped Howell back to five over par, no doubt grateful the €1.9m event does not have a halfway cut.

Hartlepool’s Graeme Storm, Sweden’s Johan Edfors and South African Charl Schwartzel were the early leaders on one under par.