Golf Dutch OpenPaul McGinley, the man in 10th and last place in the Ryder Cup points qualifying table, managed to find his putting touch to roll the ball in from six feet for birdies at 16 and 17 and 10 feet at the last to save par on his way to a one-over 72 in yesterday's first round of the KLM Open on the Kennemer links.
"I battled well but I didn't play as well as I know I can," said the Dubliner, who sank the winning putt in the 2002 Ryder Cup and is looking for his third successive team place.
"I chiselled out the best score I could and I've got to improve my quality tomorrow. I found three good putts at the end, but my putting was poor before that."
He kept his nose in front of Paul Broadhurst, number 11 in the table and chasing a Ryder Cup comeback at the age of 41. The English midlander slipped to a 73 with a final double-bogey six.
Embarrassingly that was one shot more than his playing partner, the Ryder Cup captain Ian Woosnam.
Of the other Irish in the field, Peter Lawrie, Gary Murphy and Damien McGrane signed for two-under-par 69s to share 24th place, while Michael Hoey and David Higgins joined McGinley on one over.
But Stephen Browne slipped to a four-over 75.
Colin Montgomerie's now familiar penchant for poor finishes forced him to settle for a 70. It left the 43-year-old Scot five behind Denmark's Anders Hansen and the Frenchman Christian Cevaer, who defied heavy rain and a high wind for record-breaking 65s, one clear of England's Robert Rock and the Austrian Markus Brier.
Montgomerie, warming up after a fortnight's family holiday for a final tilt of 2006 at a majors' breakthrough in next week's US PGA Championship, is keen to find his cutting edge for the visit to Medinah in Illinois. But he admitted:
"I have to play well elsewhere to counteract the last hole, which I always seem to bogey. It's very frustrating.
"Today I played nicely all the way round, very nicely actually, switching back to the belly putter, which worked well enough. I just didn't hole anything."
Hansen, who also heads out for the US PGA Championship on Sunday night, looked an unlikely front-runner when he teed up with a brand new set of irons, no practice round on a course he was playing for the first time and a pain in the neck.
"When I woke up yesterday I couldn't turn my head. I guess I must have slept awkwardly and I had to pull out of the pro-am," he explained.
"The cold wind didn't help, but the physios worked hard on me and although the neck is still stiff I managed to get round despite the pain and a bad headache.
"I only took the new irons out of the box on Monday but I wanted to use them, because they will help me hit the ball higher in America next week."
Cevaer had six birdies and was never over par.
One of the day's best efforts was a 67 from Scotland's Raymond Russell, who narrowly lost his Tour card last year for the first time since winning the 1995 Cannes Open and failed to regain it at the qualifying school.
The man in 190th place on the money list explained: "It's a Scottish type of course and I was lucky with the weather and in being able to play for the first time for week without painkillers for a shoulder injury after a London chiropractor friend worked wonders on me."
