McIlroy and Harrington in Northern Trust

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Rory McIlroy carded a round of 67 in his opening round of the US PGA Tour 2016 at the Northern Trust Open and remains four shots behind the clubhouse leader Camilo Villegas - after play was suspended due to bad light.

McIlroy had arrived on the west coast after working on his game at his Florida base during a week off and he enjoyed a good on the chilly Riviera Country Club in Pacfic Pallisades.

An opening tee shot at the 315-yard short par-four 10th left McIlroy with a tricky pitch from 30 yards, but he would turn it into the first birdie of the day by holing the putt from seven feet.

McIlroy admitted to working on his putting after his spell in the United Arab Emirates and he soon got the measure of the small and tricky Riviera surfaces, almost making an outrageous 73-foot eagle putt on the second before tapping in for a second birdie.

McIlroy was very close to making it three on the the spin at the 12th, made a good par save on the 13th and saw his ball horseshoe out from 25 feet for birdie on the 14th.

Riviera’s fairway bunkers usually exact a toll and McIlroy would drop his only shot of the round after finding the steep face of one on the right of the 15th, forcing him to come up short of the green in three as he carded a bogey five.

Two pars followed before a brilliant wedge to nine feet on the par-five 17th set up a third birdie of the round as he turned in two-under 34.

McIlroy made it a clean sweep of the par fives with a birdie on the first before a run of five pars. Another stunning approach, this time to inside three feet on the par-four seventh, brought a fifth birdie.

Unlucky to just miss out on another gain on the eighth, McIlroy holed a tricky short putt for par on the 18th to compete a fine opening round in the event.

Chez Reavie and Luke List both recorded bogey-free five-under 66s to share the lead with Bubba Watson, who carded seven birdies and two bogeys in his round. McIlroy had company on four under from American Ricky Barnes, Charles Howell III and amateur Charlie Danielson.

Pádraig Harrington was also among the early starters at Riviera, the three-time Major champion trading off two birdies against two bogeys in a level-par 71.

Charl Schwartzel showed no signs of any jetlag or effects of last week’s victory at the Tshwane Open in his native South Africa as he opened with a three-under 68. He was joined on that mark by the Americans Billy Horschel, Jason Kokrak and Harris English, Argentine veteran Angel Cabrera, South Africa’s Retief Goosen and American-based Scot Martin Laird .

England’s Justin Rose was a shot further back on two under, a mark also shared by McIlroy’s playing partners Matsuyama and Kuchar.

McIlroy was delighted to play well in his first competitive round at Riviera, which is consistently ranked by players as one of the top courses on the PGA Tour.

“Put myself out of position a couple of times but the way the conditions of the golf course were, it didn’t punish you as bad as if it would have been as firm as it was the last couple of days,” he said.

“I felt like my pace on the greens was good . . . and I lag-putted well. All of the things that you need to do around this golf course, I did pretty well today.”

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Rory Suffers Double Ohio Trouble

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Rory McIlroy ended his second day in Dublin, Ohio, signing for a round of 78 at The Memorial Tournament after three consecutive double bogeys by the turn unraveled the advantage of his round of 63 on Thursday.

The BMW PGA Champions feel to earth somewhat having held a three-shot lead over Paul Casey,Bubba Watson and Chris Kirk at the start if the second round.

After starting on the back nine, McIlroy bogeyed the 10th round before parring 11 and picking the shot back up on 12. However then came off as double-bogeys followed on 13, 14 and 15 before two pars and a further bogey saw him reach the turn in 43, now four shots off the lead - a 12-shot swing.

Yesterday over the same stretch Rory picked up two eagles, three birdies and a double bogey to record a 31.

The run for home McIlroy completed in 35 strokes with just one dropped shot at the par 5 fifth hole to end the day 6 strokes over par. A total of 15 shots off his pace on Thursday but at -3 overall still only five off current leaders

Camilo Villegas was the big winner in the early stages, moving into a share of the lead with six birdies and a bogey in his first 14 holes.

Robert Garrigus was also surging up the leaderboard and he sat one shot off the lead with a flawless five birdies through 15.

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Harrington Backs The Wild Thing

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Padraig Harrington defended playing-partner John Daly, the 1995 Open Champion, who posted a round of 90 during last week's Valspar Championship at Innisbrook in Florida.

The 47-year-old's card included an eight-over-par 12 at the 16th, plus three other double bogeys.

The American missed the cut by 19 shots but Harrington believes he did not give up during his second circuit of the Copperhead course.

Twice Open Champion Harrington said: "He came out pressing as we all did on Friday after a 74.

"But he was very respectful to play with. He was useful out there. He was trying in terms of lines and getting clubs and things like that.

"You could see what he was doing. It wasn't like I wouldn't prefer him to be there.

"But he didn't walk in. He didn't stop trying. He tried to hit the right shots on the last two holes. It didn't seem to us he was shooting that score.

"If I was going to say anything, it's that he tries too hard. He's caring too much. I know that's not what people see."

Daly, a winner of two major titles in the 1990s, is currently ranked outside the world's top 500.

David Duval, winner of The Open in 2001, also plays this week in a season he has deemed as his comeback year. He is currently ranked 195th in FedEx rankings.

Graeme McDowell was due to tee off with Tiger Woods and Harris English. However Woods has now withdrawn from the tournament he has dominated over the years due to injury.

Darren Clarke is paired with JJ Henry and Vijay Singh.

Padraig Harrington plays with  Camilo Villegas and Erik Compton.

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R & A - Spotlight on television evidence

Two recent incidents have shone a bright light on the use of television evidence in golf and the penalty structure in the situation where a player returns his score card having failed to include a penalty that he did not know he had incurred.

During the first round of the Tournament of Champions in Hawaii,Camilo Villegas moved a loose divot that might have influenced the movement of his ball in motion – a clear breach of Rule 23-1. Such an act brings with it a penalty of two strokes, but Villegas was unaware of the Rule and did not include the penalty in his score for that hole. The incident was reported to the Committee by a television viewer after Villegas had returned his score card and, as a result, Villegas was disqualified under Rule 6-6d for returning a score lower than actually taken.

A couple of weeks later in Abu Dhabi, TV images showed Padraig Harrington moving his ball in the act of removing his ball-marker during his first round, which of itself is not a penalty (Rule 20-3a), but the ball needs to be replaced. Harrington knew that he had nudged the ball forward, but felt that the ball had returned to the original spot. As it transpired, TV images showed that the ball had stopped a few millimetres short of rolling all the way back onto the original spot. Again the breach of the Rule only came to light when it was reported to the Committee by a television viewer after Harrington’s score card had been returned, and without the two-stroke penalty included in the score for that hole, disqualification under Rule 6-6d applied.

It is a fundamental principle of the Rules in stroke play that the player is responsible for the correctness of the scores on his score card, and if the player has attested for a lower score than he has actually achieved, for whatever reason, the result is disqualification. However, these cases indicate that we have entered a new age of golf viewing where increased coverage, increased use of high definition and super slow motion, the increased viewing of delayed “live” coverage and the ease with which television viewers can make contact with the tournament office through email and the internet make such incidents more likely to occur.

The issues of the escalation of the penalty from one or two strokes to disqualification after the score card has been returned and the admissibility of increasingly sophisticated television evidence have been on the agenda of the governing bodies, and we have been in discussion with the Tours on these matters, but these cases, and the reaction to them, have undoubtedly intensified the discussions on whether the Rules in this regard remain appropriate.