GOLF / BellSouth Classic: With golf, you never quite know what's around the corner. Take Padraig Harrington, for example. A week ago he missed the cut in the Players Championship; became a range rat for the weekend, spending an unsocial amount of time on the practice ground, and then spent the first three days of this week changing the grips on all of his clubs.

Hey presto, all the fiddling about worked.

Yesterday, the player was transformed for the first round of the $5.3-million BellSouth Classic at the TPC at Sugarloaf. Not that he laid claim to any chameleon-like qualities, simply putting it down to the nature of the sport.

"I didn't think I played any better today than last week, (and) I didn't play any worse than last week. That's golf. Why does a guy win one week and miss the cut another? That's why we love the game of golf. You just have to be patient."

Harrington's patience was certainly rewarded yesterday, exemplified by his actions on the par five 18th, his ninth hole, which produced an unlikely eagle on the way to an opening-round four-under-par 68, which left him four strokes behind the surprise leader, Gavin Coles, who only got into the field as an alternate when Colin Montgomerie withdrew.

Harrington's playing partner Luke Donald also shot a 68, while the third member of the group, Retief Goosen, opened with a 69.

Having seen a succession of chances slip by, but remaining patient, the Dubliner was faced with an approach to the 18th green that had danger written all over it: a downhill lie, with 260 yards to the green, the final part over water.

Harrington used his Wilson hybrid club and watched as the ball marginally cleared the water, hit the bank and crawled onto the green. If fortune favoured the brave, he followed up by rolling in a 60-footer for eagle.

"It fell into the hole; I never thought it was going in," he said.

With one eye on next week's US Masters, Harrington - who had an eagle, three birdies and one bogey in his round - was a little surprised to be in contention.

"I wouldn't show up at a tournament and not look for a result. If I'm here, I'm only thinking about the result right now . . . the best preparation for next week would be to play well here. That's lovely preparation. But there's no point thinking about the Masters now, especially when you have a pretty decent start. The focus is on trying to win this event."

Harrington's round started off with a birdie on the 10th, his first, where he holed from 20 feet. If that should have created a feel-good factor, he failed to take any further chances until holing the raker for eagle on the 18th.

When he dropped a shot on the par-three second hole, hitting a nine-iron over the back and failing to get up and down, his response was to roll in an eight-footer for birdie on the third and then hole an eight-footer on the sixth for his final birdie. A good, scrambling par save on the last after he was in trouble off the tee only added to the spring in his step.

"I'm a little more comfortable with what I'm doing (on the course)," explained Harrington, who has been working on his "leg action" and, as he put it, on "trying to rotate through the ball with my left arm and my body at the same time . . . I'm a bit more settled about how to manage my game on the golf course."

If Harrington's play of the par-five 18th showed how much a little luck can help in formulating a round, Graeme McDowell's experiences there were the flip-side of the coin. Faced with a five-wood approach to the green from the middle of the fairway, he proceeded to send the ball plopping into the lake in front of the putting surface. To his credit, he took a penalty drop and then played a wedge to a matter of inches for a tap-in par, giving him a round of 73.

There was a small degree of ring-rustiness to McDowell's return to tournament play, his first tournament outing since missing the cut at the Doral Championship earlier this month, exemplified by that initial approach to the last.

"I was hitting some great shots but also some very slack shots," said McDowell, who has started working again with Claude Harmon, son of Butch, with whom he worked when he won the Italian Open in 2004, his second European Tour title.

"It's been a frustrating few weeks. I really did not need three weeks off, especially with the way my game is coming around. But, now, it feels like starting the season all over again," he said, a reference to failing to get a place in the field at the Bay Hill Invitational and failing to make the Players.

"My game still needs a lot of work but I am in a far better position than I was six weeks ago. I've been working with Claude the last couple of weeks and he's pointed me in the right direction.

"I would love to play all four rounds this weekend and that is the first goal," added McDowell, who intends working at Orlando next week before a three-week stretch in the States that starts with the Heritage at Hilton Head in a fortnight's time.