YORK-BASED golfer Simon Dyson’s return to the European Tour after more than a month’s absence did not prove a happy one.

For the second successive day Dyson carded a one-over-par 73, which meant he tumbled out of the Abu Dhabi HSBC Championship in the Middle East.

Needing a sub-par round to make today and tomorrow’s rounds, the 36-year-old managed a solitary birdie on the outward nine on the eighth hole and that success was eclipsed by bogeys on six and nine.

He countered when clawing back a shot on the 13th, but a dropped shot on the 16th eased him out of contention.

That left him two shots shy of the halfway cut in his first tournament since appearing before a Tour disciplinary panel following his disqualification from the BMW Masters in October.Dyson had returned to action in Abu Dhabi for the first time since being handed a suspended two-month ban from the European Tour for tapping down a spike mark.

Disqualified for signing for an incorrect score in the second round, he was charged with a serious breach of the tour’s code of behaviour after officials were alerted by a television viewer to the incident. The charge was upheld when he appeared before a disciplinary panel at Wentworth in December. Dyson, however, was cleared of cheating.

Coincidentally, there was a similar incident though with a different outcome.

Video emerged from the first round of possible rules infraction during Sergio Garcia’s opening round of 76.

Footage showed the Spaniard tapping down something on the line of his putt on the 18th green, which would have been in breach of the rules if it was a spike mark.

However, the world number ten and European Tour chief referee John Paramor went out to the 18th green yesterday morning and Paramor was satisfied with Garcia’s explanation that he had tapped down a repaired pitch mark.