Golf: Heated Torrance gets short shrift: Faldo finishes with slip as dress code comes under fire in the high temperatures

PARADISE can be hell. 'It was just purgatory out there,' Sam Torrance croaked after completing yesterday's first round of the Johnnie Walker World Championship. As the mercury in the thermometer crept towards 90 Torrance went round in 73, two over par. He was hot under the collar and sounded as sick as a parrot.

Torrance is an invitee to this select field of 28 who are playing for dollars 2.7m ( pounds 1.8m) around the Tryall Club, one of the most scenic courses on earth. It is also one of the hottest, which brings us to Torrance's main complaint: he and the rest are not allowed to wear shorts.

'It's absolutely ridiculous,' Torrance said. 'I've actually won a tournament wearing shorts.' The 40-year-old Scotsman, sporting a black beard, which may ring the odd bell in the bays and inns of Jamaica, looked a rum cove indeed. As the Caribbean, following two days of tropical storms, braced itself for a scorcher, Sam arrived on the first tee, his grotesquely pink shirt hanging outside his trousers.

Was this a protest at having to cover his legs? 'My tummy sweats a lot. If I'd tucked my shirt in it would have restricted my backswing.' The players were allowed to wear shorts in practice but John Paramor, the tournament

director, drew a sartorial line when it came to the real thing.

I happened to be sitting at a table with Paramor on Wednesday, sipping a bottle of Red Stripe (a lager company that fuels West Indian cricket and has just been heavily invested in by Johnnie Walker) beneath a parasol when Torrance approached in high dudgeon.

'Please John,' he implored, 'let me wear shorts.' Paramor shook his head. 'It doesn't look professional. You'd all look like a bunch of holidaymakers.' Torrance: 'We don't swing like holidaymakers. I'm here to play golf. It's not a fashion show for goodness sake. When we played in shorts we didn't look ridiculous.'

On the European Tour caddies are not allowed to wear shorts but here, hauling a 40lb bag around, they have been given a dispensation. Paramor's defence of this is that the caddies are covered up by the sponsor's bib. Johnnie Walker, which claims a television audience of around 400 million people in 80 countries, has an image to protect. 'I'm going to have another go at him,'

Torrance said of Paramor.

Torrance was in good company in failing to beat par

although he was not joined by his compatriot Gordon Brand Jnr, who shot 70, one under par. By the 15th hole he was complaining of a headache and he reached for the aspirin bottle. 'I found it very difficult to concentrate,' Brand Jnr said. He went out in 35, came back in 35, four birdies, three bogeys.

Colin Montgomerie, whom I strongly suspect would look horrendous in shorts, coped remarkably well with the conditions and featured prominently on the leaderboard. The leader of the European Tour Order of Merit after winning the Volvo Masters at Valderrama last month, Montgomerie had five birdies in seven holes on the back nine. That put him at five under par but he dropped a stroke at the last. Fortunately, big Monty is not of the Torrance school. 'We are professional sportsmen and we should be dressed accordingly however hot it is,' he said.

Nick Faldo, the defending champion, also had a profitable run as he headed for home with birdies at the 11th, 14th and 17th holes. Faldo, the world No 1, stood at two under par and at that point was two strokes behind his Ryder Cup partner Montgomerie and three behind Ernie Els only to take a bogey-five at the 18th to finish with a 70.

Faldo experimented with a reverse grip on his putter for the first three holes before reverting to the conventional style. 'I never really felt comfortable with it,' he said, although he has not abandoned the possibility of using such a grip in the future. As for the question of displaying legs he added: 'We could look smart in shorts but I don't think I'd wear them. I'd be too sexy for the galleries.'

The South African Els, 24 and hugely talented, had six birdies and one bogey in a round of 66. His only dropped shot came at the short 15th where he hit a six-iron through the green. Els came to Jamaica hotfoot from Durban. 'It was hot there,' he said, 'but this was something else.'

JOHNNIE WALKER WORLD CHAMPIONSHIP (Montego Bay, Jamaica) First-round scores: 66 E Els (SA); 67 L Mize (US), C Montgomerie (GB); 68 S Elkington (Aus); 69 F Allem (SA), B Faxon (US), D Frost (SA); 70 G Brand Jnr (GB), N Faldo (GB); 71 C Rocca (It), B Langer (Ger), F Couples (US); 72 V Singh (Fiji), C Pavin (US); 73 S Torrance (GB), J Gallagher Jnr (US), C Strange (US), S Richardson (GB), I Woosnam (GB), T Kite (US), L Janzen (US), D Love (US). 74 J Parnevik (Swe), P Baker (GB); 75 B Crenshaw (US); 76 B Hughes (Aus), J Maggert (US); 79 S Okuda (Japan).

(Photograph omitted)