There are times when the golfing gods not only mock, they actually take things a stage further and inflict real pain. For Padraig Harrington, yesterday was one of those times. On a day of bright sunshine, with no hint of malice, the 31-year-old Dubliner was delivered a number of sucker punches in the first round of the Volvo Masters that could yet prove terminal in his quest to overhaul Retief Goosen in the race for the Order of Merit title.

From the start, it looked like it would be one of those days for Harrington, the kind Murphy's Law decrees that when anything can go wrong, it does go wrong. The omens were evident from the beginning. Harrington's first shot was a vicious hook that curled into the cork trees that line the course at Valderrama and, if that was bad, things were to get even worse a short time later when he incorrectly repaired a pitch mark on what he thought was green but was actually the fringe.

His actions in repairing the pitch mark by greenside on the first hole resulted in a two-shot penalty that set the tone for a day of struggling to carve out a score.

In the end, he had to hole a 12-foot birdie putt on the 18th to sign for a three-over-par 74, all of 11 shots behind leader Angel Cabrera and, perhaps more pertinently in the greater scheme of things, a stroke behind Goosen. "I'm not that good that I can afford to give away two shots to the field," he was to remark candidly later.

What happened by the side of that first green, however, was a self-inflicted wound that Harrington found difficult to erase completely from his mind. "You've got to expect strange things to happen at times," he said.

And this certainly fell into the strange category. Ironically, another player, Alastair Forsyth, also incurred a similar penalty for doing the same thing, in his case the second green but, unlike Harrington who cited himself, Forsyth was unaware he had infringed a rule until informed by his playing partner Richard Johnson.

Having played a great recovery from that errant tee-shot to just short of the green, Harrington walked up to repair a pitch mark which looked to be on the green, which was in shade. It was only while repairing it that he realised there was more grass than you would normally find. "An alarm bell went off in my head - 'Oops, this isn't good'," and he stepped back to have a closer look at the spot and realised it was actually the fringe, not the green.

"Nobody saw it but I knew straight away," remarked Harrington, who called over his playing partner Goosen and informed him of what had happened. Rules official Paul Carrigill confirmed that his actions breached Rule 13 (2) and, as Harrington departed the ninth tee-box some two hours later, tournament referee John Paramor confirmed to the player that it was a two-stroke penalty.

Harrington remarked: "It was not the start you want. You don't give away two shots for no reason at all which is what I did. It's a fair rule. I am very aware of the rules which, sometimes, is a double-edged sword. When you know the rules as well as I do, you often can gain an advantage but, then, there are other times when you're penalised."

That incident aside, Harrington's concentration was not up to its usually high standard. "Yeah, I made some silly mental errors," he conceded. The two errors that most annoyed him came on the ninth hole, when he caught his approach shot - a nine iron - fat and moved the ball only 50 yards, and the 14th hole, where he pulled a wedge approach and three-putted for bogey. On both occasions, Harrington left his par putts short of the hole.

"I had some ugly putts. I was very tentative on the greens and that showed in my game. I didn't hit putts with any authority," he said, and it was hardly a surprise that his first port of call after the round was the practice putting green.

Having turned three-over, Harrington's salvage operation was put into play on the back nine with birdies on the 11th and 13th and his only dropped shot was on the 14th until he came to the 17th, the 536-yards par five. With a wind coming in off the right, very few players were tempted to go for the green in two yesterday.

Although he had a hanging lie, Harrington attempted to reach the green in two but his five-wood shot was pulled left and found the water by greenside. He ended up with a double-bogey seven and only redeemed himself by birdieing the 18th where, after putting his tee-shot in the trees on the left, he played a nine-iron recovery to 12 feet and sank the putt.

Harrington admitted that playing with Goosen was "a distraction" but that there was no consolation in that he too played poorly. "I've no interest in the two of us playing badly. It is no good to me if both of us finish last or second last," he said.

While the two principals in the Order of Merit race struggled - with Harrington down in 42nd place, and Goosen in 34th after the first round - there were no such problems for Cabrera, who finished with four birdies to come home in a mere 30 strokes and sign for a 63, one shot outside the course record. It gave him a four-shot cushion over Phillip Price. "It was one of those rounds that you only dream about," said Cabrera.

Elsewhere, it was a disappointing day for the other Irish players in the field. Graeme McDowell at least birdied three of the last five holes to shoot a round of 72 but Darren Clarke had just one birdie with a 73 and Paul McGinley struggled to a 76.