Harrington produced some Houdini-like escapes to save par, finishing with a 90-yard up-and-down at his final hole, but his two-over 73 left him four shots off the early pace on a perfect links day in the shadow of Slieve Donard.
While he wished he had played better and avoided some soft bogeys, Harrington knows he’s still in the tournament as England’s Dan Brown and Oliver Wilson, South Africa’s Erik Van Rooyen, Scot Ewen Ferguson, China’s Ashan Wu and 2015 winner Soren Kjeldsen of Denmark set the early pace with modest, two-under 69s.
“Always good to finish with a par when you’re struggling down the last,” Harrington said of his closing four. “Yeah, it was a tough day. Greens are very, very fast. Playing fast.
“Even though you couldn’t have asked for nicer conditions, it was still pretty tough.
“I made some incredible up-and-downs and most of my dropped shots were kind of the better holes I played. They were a bit innocuous after going in with a couple of lob wedges.
“A strange day but certainly some miracle up-and-downs. Every time you lifted your head up and looked around, you got some hope because you could see a lot of carnage going on. What’s he doing over there?
“So yeah, it was a tough day but it was actually a day to have a little bit of a look around and see that the scoring wasn’t going so well for everyone and to see that players were struggling in it.
“Even though the conditions, really while it wasn’t warm, it wasn’t exactly really windy, was it.”
Harrington looked despondent as he turned in one-over having started on the back nine. But after making an eagle from 10 feet at the first to get to one-under, he bogeyed the second, fourth and eighth before salvaging a great par at the ninth with a 90-yard approach to four feet.
“You want to get a few breaks like I did on No. 1,” Harrington said. “That was an unbelievably good time for me, the 10th hole to make an eagle. I’m looking at the back nine, and all of a sudden I’m one-under par and somewhat in the tournament.”
Even at two-over, normally a death sentence on the PGA TOUR or the PGA TOUR Champions after day one, he knows he’s not out of it.
“You shoot two-under you’re in trouble,” he said of a non-links week in the US. “Look, two-over, I’d like to have played better.
“But when I look at the bogeys, as I said, two of them, three of them are 100-yard shots that I made bogey off, and the other was a three-putt, and one more bogey where I got under my eight-iron shot (on 13) and missed a four-footer.
“So I could have avoided the bogeys, no problem. But as I said, there were a couple of all-time up-and-downs out there.”
Power looked set to challenge the leaders as he took just ten putts on the front nine and birdied the 11th and 12th to turn in two-under.
But his round went awry early on his back nine as he bogeyed the par-five first after a wild pull from the tee, then three-putted the second and followed further bogeys at the fourth and fifth with a frustrating three-putt bogey from just 17 feet at the ninth.
It all added up to a homeward nine of five-over 40 for a 74 that left the West Waterford man lamenting his luck.
“Yeah, that was a strange one,” he said. “I didn’t do a ton wrong.
“Struggled on the more exposed greens on the front for sure — two three-putts from no distance and a bad tee shot off the first.
“Besides that, it’s tricky out there. The front nine is very tricky. Disappointing with the finish.”