Woosnam's singing in the rain

The weather was dire, the atmosphere non-existent, the course saturated. You would have thought this was the last thing that a 49-year-old with a chronic back condition, no money worries and more than 500 tournaments under his belt would need.

Yet Ian Woosnam could not have been happier. Never mind that the scene made for a vivid contrast to the last time he stood on the first tee in these parts, at last year's Ryder Cup, when the reception from the packed grandstands carried such emotion it brought a tear to his eye.

The captain on that occasion was just thankful to be part of the crew. This time he was grateful to be well enough to withstand the rigours of a testing day on the European Tour once more.

How good it was to see him with a smile back on his face, his stride still buoyant despite a double bogey on his finishing hole.

What a difference to the sad figure he cut when withdrawing just before the start of the Masters at Augusta in April, so worried by the debilitating effects of a mystery illness that he feared his time as a golfer was over.

"That was the low point because I couldn't see any light at the end of the tunnel," he said.

"But once it was traced back to a virus I caught in Thailand and was diagnosed as chronic fatigue then I could work towards the day I would be well again. At the Masters it was in my hips and I could only walk 150 yards.

"Now it has gone down my legs and it's in my shins. Given how short my legs are, it shouldn't be long before it's gone all together."

Woosnam was talking after a comeback round in which there were plenty of examples of the prodigious natural talent that always made him one of the best players in Europe to watch.

When he went to that final hole he was actually two under par, a staggering effort given all that he has been through, but a reminder that talent in his case was always aligned to sheer will.

"Now I'm off for a Guinness," he said, with a nod to the other thing for which he is noted. "In Ireland it would be rude not to."

Woosie signed for a level-par 70, six strokes behind the leader, Maarten Lafeber from Holland, with in-form Swede Niclas Fasth, leading European at the U.S. Open and a winner in Germany the following week, one of four players to shoot 65.

David Howell, another making a comeback, also acquitted himself well with a 69. As for his Ryder Cup teammates, Colin Montgomerie shot 69 and Padraig Harrington and Paul McGinley 71.

The regulation mark was reduced from its usual 72 when the par-five 18th was changed to a par three, owing to the soaked fairway.

The fact this was a day more suited to amphibians was summed up on the ninth when Ulsterman Graeme McDowell surveyed a putt, only for his concentration to be broken by a frog hopping across his line.

His playing partner, Frenchman Raphael Jacquelin, noted: "That makes two frogs on this green."