The best golfer in Ireland is only the second-most popular Irish golfer in the Gulf. As Padraig Harrington, 38, the Open champion in 2007 and the Open and US PGA champion in 2008, went about his business almost unnoticed in the opening round of the Dubai World Championship, Rory McIlroy, 20, caught everyone’s eye as the Northern Irishman tried to become the second-youngest winner of the order of merit, now known as the Race to Dubai.

Harrington made a decent start with a round of 68 and is in with a chance of winning the 72-hole strokeplay tournament, but he cannot beat McIlroy, Ross Fisher, Lee Westwood or Martin Kaymer in the Race to Dubai. One of them will win that. So down here, in the heat of the desert, amid all the cranes that are not working and houses that are empty, while McIlroy is the name on everyone’s lips, Harrington is forgotten, even if he has not gone.

Harrington was unconcerned that he has won three times as many major championships as McIlroy has won tournaments (three to one) yet had about one fifth as many spectators watching him in his opening round, 75 compared with 350. “That sort of thing wouldn’t worry Padraig,” Caroline, his wife, noted, a smile on her face. “After all, he won two major championships in one season last year and did not win the order of merit.”

However, Harrington was disturbed at how Thierry Henry’s deliberate handling of a ball had given France victory over Ireland in a football World Cup play-off tie the night before. He watched it before he began his round yesterday morning and it was still riling him after he had completed it.

“The celebration of the cheating was particularly galling,” Harrington said. “That was what got me.” He took off his visor, wiped his forehead, shook his head and repeated himself. “The celebration of the cheating.”

Golf is one of the few sports in which players call penalties on themselves. Harrington has done so more times than he cared to remember. His ball moving at the address. His club accidentally hitting the ball twice. These are the sort of offences golfers own up to. So to see his countrymen knocked out of the World Cup by a deliberate act of cheating was almost too much.

“Golf has a different attitude,” he said. “In golf, if we make a mistake, we put our hand up. Everyone makes a mistake and I wouldn’t hold it against them, but to act like it never happened ... ” Harrington’s voice trailed off. He made it sound as if it was completely foreign to him.

Harrington had played with Soren Hansen, the affable Dane, a friend and a Ryder Cup team-mate in the United States last year. “Oh Soren, what a lovely man,” Caroline Harrington said. “He is so easygoing. There is no stress when you’re playing with him. He just needs to putt like my husband.”

At that moment, Harrington sank a 15-foot putt on the 8th hole for his fourth birdie of the day and then watched as Hansen missed a putt for a birdie of no more than six feet. “See what I mean,” Caroline said.

“Soren is like Paul McGinley. Watching Paul play golf would drive me to drink. He hits every fairway, every green and then two-putts each time. I really feel for him, as I do for Soren. I told Padraig I much prefer his golf when he is in the trees and birdies a hole from there.”

Harrington dropped one stroke on the 12th, where his drive finished in a fairway bunker, and regained it at the 14th, the third of the four par-fives, with his fifth birdie of the day. It was a workmanlike effort for a man who had just had one week’s holiday. McIlroy, incidentally, also shot 68.

“Good luck to Rory,” Harrington said. “He doesn’t need any advice from me.” On the other hand, he did look as though he would have liked to give Henry a piece of his mind. Cheating and then celebrating. Whatever next.