Padraig Harrington 'a little disappointed' after Open first round

Padraig Harrington admitted he was "a little disappointed" not to have found himself closer to the leaders after the first round at The Open.

The two-time champion golfer of the year was two-over-par after the opening two holes at Royal Troon, but was one-under for the remaining 16, leaving him starting day two on one-over and not too far behind the top half of the leaderboard.

Harrington said it was "hard to comprehend how short the ball goes when the weather is bad" after the wet and windy conditions wreaked havoc for many players at the Ayrshire course and the 52-year-old felt he could have got himself to under par.

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He said: "I played okay the first couple of holes, a bit unlucky on the first, bunker shot should have stopped and it went by and missed it, which wasn't great, a bad chip on the second and after that I played very solid all the way. I kept it in play very nicely, hit lots of nice shots.

"It's always going to be difficult to get it really close but disappointing on the last not to get it back to level par, maybe the three putt on 16 from off the front.

"I would have liked to get it back to level par and certainly felt like I could have and maybe I'm just a little disappointed with the score at the end."

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