Ireland opened their campaign for the Men's Home International title with a 7 1/2 - 7 1/2 draw against host nation Scotland at Carnoustie yesterday but it proved a personal disaster for Portmarnock's Adrian Morrow when he miscounted on the last green of the last match.
Morrow stood one up coming down the last, but looked to have made a fatal error when he pulled his second shot out of bounds and eventually found the green in four.
But Craig Watson was not faring much better, his second finding sand and his escape shot flying over the green before he putted down to four feet away in four.
Morrow putted up to the same distance but, in the belief that Watson had only played three, conceded the Scotsman's tricky downhiller believing he had two for the hole when, in actual fact, Watson needed to hole out to make absolutely sure.
"I did make a mistake," admitted 47-year-old Morrow. "I thought he had a couple of putts for the hole and I should have realised, but I didn't."
It ended a frustrating day for Ireland who raced into the lead in all five of the morning foursomes before being pegged back to 2 1/2 - 2 1/2 at lunch.
In total three of the five foursomes were halved, Ireland's only winners being Graeme McDowell and Ciaran McMonagle.
The duo continued their good form in the singles, Irish Amateur champion McDowell beating Mark Loftus 2 and 1 while McMonagle swept aside Graham Fox 4 and 3.
Other singles winners for Ireland were Limerick's Tim Rice and Michael Hoey of Shandon Park while Birr's Justin Kehoe scrambled a half against Ewan Forbes.
"It was a very close match as the scoreline suggests and it could have gone either way," said Irish captain Eddie Dunne. "But at the start of the day I would have taken a draw against Scotland who are always hard to beat on their own patch so I'm not too disappointed."
The other match between England and Wales finished all square as well.
England, last year's winners, looked to be off to a flier when they took the foursomes session 4-1 but they were caught cold by a plucky Welsh fightback in the singles session which the men from the Principality took 6 1/2 - 3 1/2.
