FIAT DEALERS GARAGES

Padraig Harrington is hopeful that the atrocious weather scenes witnessed ahead the start of The Open can help to shred away some of the competition.

The Irishman and the remainder of the field taking part at the 141st Open Championship at Royal Lytham & St Annes have been observing the poor conditions in the lead-up to teeing off on Thursday, and while many will not have much of an appetite for playing in the wet Harrington sees the benefit.

"There's going to be ebb and flow during the week, you're going to get some good breaks and some bad breaks," said the two-times Open winner. "You'll be walking up to some holes and you're going to see that rain coming in and you'll be hoping it holds off to get through that tee shot.

"But that's the nature of links golf, you tend to be able to see the bad weather when it's coming at you."

Asked whether he would prefer to play through some testing conditions, Harrington confirmed that he views it as a potential aid.

"I think yes, I would like some of the golf to be tough this week, some of the conditions, but I know myself when you have 72 holes of a rainy tournament it's nearly last man standing at that stage and that's really difficult for everybody," he explained.

"I would like to see certainly 18 holes, if not 36 holes of difficult conditions because that will cut enough of the field out and hopefully I won't be one of those."

Harrington took two of his three career major titles at The Open in 2007 and 2008.

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Intel warned it expects to see lower-than-anticipated growth for 2012. The news came as the company posted mixed results for the second quarter of the year.

The world's biggest chip maker said net profit for the three months to the end of June was $2.8 billion, down 4% from the same period a year earlier. Revenues were $13.5 billion, up 3% from the second quarter of 2011.

"As we enter the third quarter, our growth will be slower than we anticipated due to a more challenging macroeconomic environment," said Paul Otellini, president and CEO of Intel.

As a result, the company expects to record annual revenue growth of between 3% and 5% this year, down from the "high single digit" growth it had previously predicted.

Intel's results come against a general lack of consumer enthusiasm for desktop and laptop computers in preference to tablets and smartphones. Global PC sales reached 87.5 million units in the quarter, virtually unchanged from the same period a year ago, according to figures from IDC. The drop was steeper in established markets like the U.S., where PC shipments dropped 5.7 percent.

While Intel sells chips that go into both tablet PCs and smartphones, the chips are not as powerful and don't carry the same price tags and profit margins as Intel's faster PC processors. Intel is trying to rekindle interest in laptop PCs with the Ultrabook platform, a sleek, thin design intended to bring Macbook Air style to the Windows PC sector, but the machines are still at an early stage.