He may have won two Major titles inside the past eight weeks but Padraig Harrington still needs to produce something pretty special in a marathon 36-hole session at Bellerive today to make it into America's showpiece Tour Championship.

After missing the cut at The Barclays and Deutsche Bank Championship, Harrington wallowed in 44th place in the FedEx Cup points table as he teed it up in the rain-delayed first round of The BMW in St Louis yesterday.

The Dubliner needs to finish in the first three here to force his way back into the top-30 and win a place in The Tour Championship.

The FedEx Cup itself, not to mention the $10m bonus that goes with it, is out of Harrington's reach. Even if by some miracle he managed to pull off another spectacular double in St Louis and Atlanta, he cannot catch points leader Vijay Singh.

Though mentally drained after his Major heroics at Royal Birkdale and Oakland Hills, Harrington still managed to produce a fighting one under par 69 on this 7386-yard monster of a golf course.

It left him four behind clubhouse leader, Camilo Villegas, and three shy of Tim Herron and US Ryder Cup comrades Kenny Perry and Steve Stricker.

Sergio Garcia shot 68 while Vijay Singh's prospects of completing an unprecedented playoff hat-trick this week dimmed as he opened with 70.

Yet with the second and third rounds to be played at Bellerive today, he'll have an opportunity to show his trademark resilience. Despite Harrington's fatigue, he could pile up the birdies if the adrenaline starts pumping.

The course played long yesterday but was ripe for scoring with preferred lies and greens made receptive by the torrential rainfall which washed out play on Thursday.

Harrington was too imprecise with his approach play to take advantage. Too often, he had to scramble hard for par, sinking half a dozen clutch putts from around the six-foot mark for par. In all, he had three birdies and two bogeys on his card.