Golf:It wasn't quite as bad as the official European Tour leaderboard would have you believe for Ireland's Rory McIlroy and Graeme McDowell during the BMW PGA Championship at Wentworth this morning, but it wasn't all that pretty either.
Gremlins in the tour’s website showed the pair at 45 over and 47 over respectively at one stage. Despite recent final round collapses, even that would have been stretching things. Nevertheless, both players have some work to do if they hope to mount a challenge over the weekend.
McIlroy, playing alongside mentor Darren Clarke, finished well down the field on five over while McDowell was just one shot better off after opening with a 75. Clarke, with a win under his belt two weeks ago, led the Irish challenge on two under but was still five off the lead of Luke Donald.
Donald took a giant stride towards the world number one spot with a seven under par 64. Four days after he just missed out on dethroning Lee Westwood, last year’s runner-up threw down the gauntlet with a sparkling eight-birdie display in the wet and windy conditions.
Westwood was struggling to respond and finished eight strokes adrift at one over. Afterwards, the Worksop player joked: "They should drug test Luke after a 64 - I can't quite figure that one out."
Not for the first time this year, Westwood's putting let him down.
"When your longest putt is five feet you are going to struggle to shoot seven under," he said. "I had only one bad swing - left into a bush on the sixth."
Donald’s only mistake came when he pulled his approach to the 480-yard 12th into the trees and had to chip out sideways. But he was already five under when that bogey came and over the closing stretch he picked up further strokes on the 13th, 16th and 17th.
The Ryder Cup star had last year’s captain Colin Montgomerie alongside him for a while, but the 47-year-old — without a top-10 finish for almost three years and a lowly 462nd in the world — bogeyed the 15th and 16th.
That left 18-year-old Matteo Manassero in second place on five under. Almost unbelievably Manassero could move into the world’s top 15 if he captured his third European Tour title this weekend.
Donald’s score equalled his lowest on the European Tour and he said: “It’s right up there — probably the best round I’ve played in a long time. Given the swirling wind and some rain, to control the ball as well as I did is very satisfying.
“I am seeing the shots very well and they are coming off nicely. It’s a good feeling. Top 10s are nice (he is on a run of eight in a row), but winning is what’s important.”
Donald was asked what it felt like to play so well and commented: “I guess you feel a little bit invincible - every thing is positive around you.”
