Daly stumbles into a pile of problems

There was to be no happy return to Jamaica for the Open champion, John Daly, yesterday.

Daly, disqualified from the Johnnie Walker World Championship for signing for a wrong score four years ago, began this year's event at Tryall, Montego Bay, with an embarrassing 80, leaving him 14 shots behind the early leader, Australia's Wayne Grady.

He opened with a quadruple bogey eight - and three holes later added a double bogey seven. Daly, who was the last of the 20 players to arrive and did not have time for a practice round, hooked his opening drive 50 yards left of where he was aiming. He clearly had little memory of the course, for when his caddie, Greg Rita, told him how far it was to carry to ditch in front of the green, Daly replied: "What ditch?"

Knowing about it did not do him any good. His club twisted in the tangly rough and the ball finished in the hazard. From there things went from bad to worse. In trying to play the ball back out, he hit a rock rather than his ball. He then took a penalty drop, went over the green with his next and then left his chip way short.

Two putts later, he was already four over par. A bogey four at the short third quickly followed and then the seven at the 496-yard fourth to leave him seven over par. Out in 43, he added a triple bogey at the 342-yard 11th, but did at least have three birdies after that to spare some of his blushes.

By comparison, Nick Faldo's opening bogey five was none too disastrous, but it did leave Britain's world No 6 three strokes behind the early leader, Wayne Riley. The Australian, who beat Faldo to the Scottish Open title in July, chipped in at the first and also birdied the long fourth.