"3" Irish Open
Solid opening round of three under par for Padraig at this years "3" Irish Open. A picture perfect card contained three birdies and no blemishes. He tees off early in the second round at 8am and will be hoping for a low round to get in contention for the weekend. Seven under par leads after round one.

Padraig is in beautiful Killarney this week as he attempts to win this years "3" Irish open. Having won the event three years ago at Adare Manor, it would help him in his bid to break back into the Ryder Cup standings. He tees off in an all Irish threeball in round one with Damien McGrane and Graeme McDowell at 12.25pm .

"3" Irish Open - Preview
For this year's Irish Open we are in Killarney, which last held our national championship in 1992 when Nick Faldo won. The funny thing with regard to Killarney Golf Club is that I have never played there, as there was never a tournament around the Killeen course when I was an amateur. When the last Irish Open was held here I must have been away because I cannot remember watching it. As I have never played the course before, I came down on Sunday afternoon so as to get settled in and give myself a chance to play the course on Monday.

Even though I have had a week off since the Open Championship I haven’t really had much spare time as I had a couple of corporate outings and a challenge match in Loch Erne. It meant that I wasn’t able to do as much practice as I would have liked but then that could be a good thing. I missed the cut at the Open but I actually struck the ball well, the missed cut was much more down to my short game and wedge play. With this in mind I have spent a lot of my time working on my short game. I have played the course twice since I came down on Sunday; one full round on Wednesday and another 18 holes split between Monday and Tuesday. On top of playing the course I have been practising my wedge play and short game quite a bit. I have limited the amount of time on the range so as not to get too involved in my technique. As far as my technique goes I am very happy with what I am working on; I am confident that once it is fully bedded into my swing, playing golf will be a lot easier for me.

Since missing the cut at the Open a lot has been made of my form and a lot of people have been asking me what is gone wrong and why aren’t I playing better. The funny thing is I am hitting the ball very well, probably as well as I have ever hit it and I am much more confident in my long game than at any time in the past. The problem that everyone seems to have is that I haven’t won since the USPGA in 2008 but I have had a lot of very good tournaments since then. I have been in contention a number of times but unfortunately I haven’t come out on the right side of it. I am not worried about my form; in fact I am very excited about my game and the progress that I have made. I am looking forward to the run of events that I have starting from here in Killarney.

Having never been here before I have to say that I am blown away by the setting; I don’t think you find a more beautiful place anywhere in the world. I am staying in the Aghadoe Heights Hotel and Spa, which looks out over the course and the lake. It is an amazing site to look out at every morning. The only unfortunate thing is that I am here to work and not relax! I have played the course twice now and I like it a lot; it is not long by modern standards but it has it own defences. The greens are quite tricky as there are little shelves in them, which can make for tough pins. That said they are very receptive and there is not much rough on the course. I can see the scoring being good this week but the better a course is prepared the lower the scoring will be. It is actually a compliment to your course if us pros come out and shoot good scores as we rarely shot low scores on badly prepared courses. The key to shooting a good score here is to play the par three’s well and a couple of par fours, like the fifth and the thirteenth. If you can get through these holes with pars then you have a good chance of making a score, as there are plenty of birdie chances out there. It is important not to try and over power this course, as there are plenty of disasters waiting to happen also.

I won the Irish Open in 2007 and it was a great thrill for me to win my own national title; I would love to give myself a chance to do it again this week. I am very happy with my game so hopefully a few putts go in and I can give myself a chance come Sunday afternoon.

Talk soon,
Padraig.