GOLF Irish PGA Championship

INEVITABLY, Pádraig Harrington was the focus of most attention as he moved into a one-shot lead after two rounds of the Irish Professional Championship but one suspects that Gary Silcock, the Director of Golf at PGA National, was the talk of the machine shed here.

At least, that's what the affable Scotsman feared after posting a second round 89 yesterday as he slid out of the tournament on a 25 over par total of 169, a whopping 28 strokes behind Ireland's world No 12.

Harrington arrived at Palmerstown House this week determined not only to defend his national title but to sharpen his focus and clear the mind of whispers of doubt which had haunted him on the golf course in recent weeks.

Yet nobody faced more pressure yesterday than Silcock as he stood over his five iron second shot across water to the green at the 14th hole, the last of the six golf balls he'd started out with lying at his feet.

Never mind the calamitous 50 he'd scored on the front nine. Silcock was assailed by the horrible thought that if he dumped this Titleist in the water, his championship would come to an even more ignominious end.

"I didn't really have a swing thought for the past two days but when I got down to that last ball, it gave me real focus over the final five holes," he quipped later.

To his enormous credit, Silcock defied the screaming heebie-jeebies, hitting a superb shot into the green before rolling home the eagle putt.

More importantly, he evaded possible disqualification by hanging onto the same ball all the way to the finish - some feat, considering he'd lost three in the first three holes and two more by the time he racked-up his fourth seven of the day at the 13th.

PGA National is one tough championship course, especially playing as long as it did in Thursday's first round and again yesterday. Local knowledge would prove of no benefit whatsoever to Silcock or his assistant Eddie Pettit, who added an 83 to the 90 he scored in the first round.

Silcock's front nine reads like a train wreck. He opened bogey, treble-bogey, quadruple-bogey, double-bogey, bogey, double-bogey, bogey as he shed 14 shots in the first seven holes and had to wait until the par three eighth before notching the first of three successive pars.

Admirably, he took all of yesterday's setbacks in his stride, expressing delight at "the six foot putt I sank at the last to break 90 - and I managed to go around in four hours".

Tour professional Damien McGrane was looking forward to playing with Harrington in today's third round after sweeping to within one stroke of the Dubliner's lead with a bogey-free round of 68, the lowest of the championship so far.

"It's great to play with one of the best in the game - it doesn't get much better than that," said McGrane, whose four birdies yesterday included a 35 yard chip-in for a bunker at the short 10th.

Harrington also had a chip-in, at the par five 16th, for one of the four birdies on his card as he went around PGA National in 70 yesterday. "It went okay," he shrugged. "I now have a clear idea of the work that has to be done. It's all about focus."

Only three other players completed the opening 36 holes in par - Peter Lawrie, polished Carton pro Francis Howley and Stephen Hamill of Lisburn.

Karl MacGinty

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