Paul McGinley continued his search for a second Volvo Masters title in three years at Valderrama today, hoping an event he would normally not have been entitled to play in can reignite his career.
When the Dubliner won the title at the end of the 2005 season he rose to the dizzy heights of 18th in the world. Now he is 209th.
Usually the tournament is restricted to the European Tour's top 60, but to celebrate its 20th staging this week all past champions were invited.
McGinley, 74th on the money list and without a top-10 finish for over a year, began with a two-under-par 69 yesterday and, in the windy conditions, that was sufficient to put him second on his own a stroke behind Northern Ireland's Graeme McDowell.
So while Justin Rose, despite a stomach bug, edged ahead of Padraig Harrington in their Order of Merit battle — neither can afford to finish outside the top three and Rose is there while Harrington is a shot back in fifth — McGinley has his own agenda.
Inevitably, the 40-year-old was asked after his opening round whether his decision to stand down as an assistant to Ryder Cup captain Nick Faldo had played any part in his recent struggles to find form.
Appointed in May, McGinley resigned saying he wanted to concentrate on his own game, although the timing of the announcement after Faldo had picked Simon Dyson and Marc Warren for the Seve Trophy in Ireland had the rumour mill working overtime.
"The longer I did the job, the more I went down the road of doing it, the more I realised it was a drain on my energy and something I was not ready for," he said in Spain.
"Hopefully there will be times in the future when I can do it again, but I wanted to nip it in the bud and get to doing my own thing. Down the road maybe hopefully there will be more opportunities."
McGinley was asked to accompany Faldo on his trip to Kentucky last week to look at the course and the facilities for the match. "I would be missing two tournaments and it's not like me to not give the job 100 per cent and miss something as big as that," he added.
"And then the Seve Trophy was the same thing too (Faldo asked him if he wanted to be there). There were other players going for the same position that I'm going for and I thought it was a bit of a conflict of interest, so I stepped aside to do my own thing."
Rose had a hole-in-one at the third hole yesterday, but most of the talk afterwards concerned his health — especially as Paul Casey lost the Order of Merit to Harrington last year after falling ill in the final week.
"I didn't get much sleep, a couple of hours, and from 7.30am I was getting rid of things out of my body," stated the 27-year-old. "Right now every joint is aching and aching.
"It feels like I've been 72 holes in the wind or 10 rounds with Tyson — I don't know which is worst actually — and the ace enabled me to dig a little bit deeper and churn out a good score.
"I knew it would be a good six-iron and at the top of its flight I said 'Go'. And when it landed I went 'In'. And it disappeared.
"It's diarrhoea at the end of the day, but if you start struggling with it on the course you have nowhere to hide, so that was concerning me.
"Thirty minutes before I teed off I threw up, so that was a bit worrying, but from that point on I actually didn't feel like I was going to run into any trouble from that perspective.
"Hopefully it's a 24-hour bug."
Harrington was delighted to finish level par having been four over at the turn, and he is definitely still in with a great chance of overhauling table-topping Ernie Els, who opted for Singapore rather than Valderrama.
He is just ahead of Rose in second place, meaning that he will keep his number one crown if he is in the top three on Sunday and Rose is not ahead of him.
Swedes Henrik Stenson and Niclas Fasth have to win the tournament to have a chance, but resumed this morning five and four over respectively.
PA