Francesco Molinari was thrown out of the Irish Open yesterday after signing for two wrong scores.
Italian Molinari made his mistake at the end of his second round at a rainswept County Louth course north of 
He and playing partner Peter Hanson refused to discuss the controversy last night when it was still unclear how the mistake had occurred.
After setting a course-record 63, Molinari was still up with the leaders despite taking 10 shots more in his second round. But as he was changing after four hours in pouring rain, he was told by
They had spotted that while he had taken a double-bogey six at the 12th and a regulation four at the 13th, those scores were transposed on his scorecard. Hanson, as his playing partner, was responsible for marking Molinari’s scores during the round, but Molinari had an equal responsibility to check the numbers.
Later Hanson said: “I felt guilty the minute I was told what had happened. I didn’t put the scores in until after nine holes because I didn’t want to keep taking the card out when it was raining so hard.
“I know these things happen, but it’s a shame for it to happen to Francesco when he was doing so well.”
Molinari left without comment as a scramble developed to take his place on the leaderboard.
At one stage there was a group of seven on 10 under, including England’s Lee Westwood, Oliver Wilson, Nick Dougherty and Robert Rock.
