GOLF: As Peter Lawrie stepped down from the recorder's hut, the stink from a burst pipe emanating from a temporary toilet in the main grandstand caused him to momentarily turn up his nose.
But even the smell was no more than a mild irritant to last season's "rookie of the year", who has even grander expectations for the year ahead.
These days, life is all sweetness and light and, if he has his way, is set to get even better. Only a couple of months into his marriage to wife Phillipa, the 29-year-old Dubliner has no intentions of resting on last season's laurels which saw him establish a place on tour and become the first Irish player to win the Henry Cotton award.
"I'm getting hungrier," he said, "and have set my goal for a stroke average of 70. If I can do that, I can get into the top 20 on the Order of Merit, and that's my aim."
If that target seemed a tad lofty after his first five tournaments of the season, after which he was positioned 71st on the money list with just one top-20 finish, things took on a rosier hue in yesterday's first round of the Desert Classic, his sixth outing of the campaign. Lawrie, first out, shot a three-under-par 69 (inside his stroke target) and built a firm platform for the days ahead.
Up at a quarter-to-five yesterday morning, only to be met with a thick blanket of fog that delayed the start of play for two and a half hours, Lawrie nonetheless had to make the trip to the course.
"At half past seven I hit a few shots on the range, but you couldn't see 50 yards," he remarked.
Instead, much of the waiting time was spent laid out on a few chairs in the clubhouse. Yet, when the word came that play was ready to start, he "ended up rushing" for his tee-time.
Consequently, with his mind not entirely focused, he hit what he termed "a stupid shot" to the second, which resulted in a bogey.
After that, though, there was far more good golf than bad and, although he turned one-over, Lawrie came home with four birdies and no dropped shots.
On the 10th, his three-wood second shot finished just short of the greenside bunker and he pitched dead for birdie; on the 13th, he chipped to 15 feet and sank the birdie putt; on the 14th, he hit a nine-iron approach to 10 feet and sank the putt, and on the 16th he rolled in a 15 footer.
"It's a nice start. I've been playing better than my scoring would suggest in the tournaments up to now - but I have got to improve on my weekend golf," claimed Lawrie, who is starting a three-week stint that will also take in Qatar and Singapore.
Of the Irish players to finish their rounds yesterday, Lawrie returned the best score.
Darren Clarke shot level par 72, but - having started on the 10th - his five-wood approach to the 18th which landed in the lake guarding the green typified some tiredness left over from last week's exertions in California where he finished third in the Accenture Matchplay. "I made a bad swing, just tried to push it too far," remarked Clarke.
Indeed, of the threeball that also featured Thomas Bjorn and Ian Poulter, just Bjorn managed a birdie - on the eighth - on their back nine.
"We almost joined hands and danced around the green when that happened," he joked.
Graeme McDowell had a first-round 74, while Gary Murphy was one-under after 14 holes of his first round, Damien McGrane was level par after 12 holes and Paul McGinley was one-over after 11 holes.
