Padraig Harrington got his challenge for the WGC Accenture Match Play Championship off to the perfect start yesterday with an emphatic first-round victory over Jerry Kelly, of the United States.

Harrington - who says that as an amateur he would come through to win matches when his opponents thought they had him beaten - took full advantage of a Dove Mountain course that, with wide and inviting fairways, favours the big hitters.

Once reliant on outstanding chipping and putting to secure his victories, the Irishman has added length to his game in recent years and that, together with a mental strength equalled by few, is pushing him to the very top of the game. It is not for nothing that he won the Open Championship at Carnoustie last year when he came through to beat Sergio García in a four-hole play-off.

Against Kelly, a journeyman through and through, Harrington took a lead he was never to relinquish at the 1st hole, his opponent making a horrible hash of things around the green and taking four to get down from about 36 yards for the first of three bogeys.

Often it is the punch to the solar plexus that hurts in matchplay and when Harrington rolled in a putt of 22 feet for a winning birdie to go two up at the 6th, with his opponent 12 feet closer to the the hole, Kelly will have known for certain that he did not have the firepower to compete.

“That putt made all the difference,” Harrington said after a 4 and 3 victory that included an estimated seven birdies and a solitary bogey. “All of a sudden I was two up and Jerry had to go chasing the pins.

“There are plenty of birdie opportunities out there, but if you don't make them, you will struggle. I don't believe I'm completely on top of my game and am still a little rusty. I'm happy with the form I showed today, but I'm not as comfortable as the scoring suggests.”

Harrington was three up at the turn, after winning the par-three 8th with a par to Kelly's bogey, and four up after ten. It was just a matter of time before he closed out the match, which he duly did at the 15th. It secured him a second-round clash with Stewart Cink, who beat Miguel Ángel Jiménez 4 and 3, and provides Harrington with the chance to make amends for defeat at the same stage last year to the same player.