GOLF/NEC International: Ben Curtis, the British Open champion, is to marry his fiancée Candace on Saturday and the only slight complication is that he has no idea when the ceremony will take place. (First Round, on TV: Sky Sports 1, 5.00)

Curtis, faced with the option of cancelling months of wedding planning in order to play in the $6 million NEC Invitational, could not decide. So he chose to play anyway and to get married anyway.

Curtis will play the third round of the tournament - there is no cut - and, whenever he finishes, he will get wed. "As far as I know," he said, "it's the only wedding of the day, so we won't be holding anyone up."

If he scored well he would be up among the leaders and have a late tee time on Saturday. The latest will be around 3.40 p.m., which would mean a finish around 8 p.m. And if he was in contention, he would be required for the round of interviews. After all that it would be 9 to 9.30 p.m. and, unless he played in it, the tuxedo would still be on the peg. "Have you ever played in a tux?" he was asked. "No," he said, "and I'm not going to."

Justin Rose's plan is simple. "I want to do 65s the whole way through. I've got nothing else to do this week." Those scores would give him a total of 260, 20 under par on one of the toughest courses around, but it would not have been enough to beat the winner in 2000. Tiger Woods produced a phenomenal 259, to win by 11 from Justin Leonard and Phillip Price.

Another competitor here this week with his mind on something other than golf is Padraig Harrington, the saga of the baby he and Caroline are expecting having been updated last Friday when they discovered as the result of a scan the baby would not arrive for another week or so.

"Nothing's happening, I spoke to the doctor today and it looks like it will continue to be late," said Harrington yesterday. "At one time I didn't think I was going to be out here at all but so far it has proved a good decision."

Asked if he was prepared to leave at a moments notice if anything did happen at home, he said, "I don't know what I would do but I am not going to say that I would do that, as it's a new situation and I will have to just wait and see. I'm still holding out hope for my game although my expectations are not too high.

"I'm going to try a different approach on the course this week. Normally I always hit the ball down the right and draw it in, but this week I am going to try to hit it down the left and cut it, just for devilment. That suits a lot of tee shots on this course plus it was my natural shot as an amateur years ago. This is a week that I can experiment a little bit as we are all here for four days."

Woods won the first three NEC Invitationals here at Firestone only to be supplanted by Craig Parry when the tournament switched venues last season. After his poor showing in last week's USPGA, someone asked him whose expectations were higher, his or the public's? Tiger replied, "Mine are awfully high but mine are a little bit more realistic." ...