A DISAPPOINTING putting round cost Padraig Harrington a chance of a place near the top of the Alfred Dunhill South African PGA Championship leaderboard last night and sent the Stackstown man straight to the practice green with, yet another gadget.

This one was a block of wood jammed against the putter-head to ensure his ball gets through on the line to the hole he desires. Had he been able to do that without the device in yesterday's opening around at Houghton, Johannesburg, his three-under-par 69, to be "five off German Thomas Gogele's lead and well down the chasing pack, would have been enhanced greatly, he felt.

"The round should have been at least three strokes better," confirmed Harrington, seeking his second tour success after last year's Spanish Open triumph after running into great form to begin this year's campaign, "but it wasn't a case of bad putting, just not getting the ball in the hole. I horse-shoed out from five, six and four feet after the turn and missed a few short ones. Even with the ones I did sink, which perhaps I shouldn't have, it could have been a much better day."

This was largely because Harrington, despite being without the services of a coach on his 10-event run, had quickly found out what was going wrong with an errant swing which materialised on Tuesday, but then let the round slip through his putting. "It wasn't the greens, either," he added, "because these are the best I've played all year so far."

Thus he was well down the field last night, remarkably sharing only a 29th placing with fellow-Irishman David Higgins, who also shot 69, and 26 others, including plucky Scot Andrew Coltart, who was on a drip in the locker-room only minutes before his round, suffering dehydration from food-poisoning.

The relatively lowly placing was because the combined tours' pros went to town on the Houghton layout. Paul McGinley's 71 will need enhancing greatly today to be sure of making the cut and John McHenry with 73 and Eamonn Darcy 74, will have to pull out all the stops to survive. No less than 95 players broke par and Seve Ballesteros's 74 was only, good enough for 120th place.

Leader Gogele, a Hamburg 26-year-old shot an eight-under-par 64 which broke the course record by one.

While Harrington did not aspire to a 64, his five birdies could have been enhanced and both bogeys - misses from four feet to save par - could have been avoided.

Harrington said: "My rhythm had gone and I decided it was through poor balance. I soon copped what I was doing wrong, and altered it reasonably quickly. Obviously it's a problem if things go wrong when you're on a 10- event run and I'd dearly love to take a week off to practice.

"But I knew what the situation would be when I decided to play so many events in a row. And after all, if my coach came out he'd only tell me what I know I should be doing already!"

What David Higgins knew he should be doing was putting better and he accomplished that, picking up three birdies, one with a swinging 25-footer, the others from solid eight-footers and several medium range efforts keeping bogeys off the card. "It was a great improvement on the last few weeks and particularly last week," said the Waterville man. "I was awful and completely lost confidence."

. Former US Masters champion Jose Maria Olazabal will make his long-awaited comeback at next week's Dubai Desert Classic after 18 months on the sidelines with rheumatoid arthritis in both feet. The 31-year-old Spaniard, who hasn't played in a tournament since the Lancome Trophy in Paris in September 1995, has chosen Dubai which begins on February 27th because of the nearly perfect weather.