Harrington fails to turn the Corner

The 13th hole that completes the picture-postcard stretch known as Amen Corner isn't quite as innocent as it appears, and Padraig Harrington - who paid the ultimate price for trying to cut too much off the corner of the dog-leg - can testify to that.

Yesterday, the 29-year-old Dubliner stood on the 13th tee, which is perched back almost to the boundary fence that separates Augusta National from the Augusta Country Club, and took his four-wood from caddie Dave McNeilly.

At the time, he was four-under-par, both for the day and the championship; by the time he walked off the green 485 yards away, he had dropped back to just one-under-par, the result of a triple bogey eight.

His drive on the hole hooked left over Rae's Creek into the bushes and trees that define the dog-leg and, having trooped back almost as far as the bridge by the 12th green to make his penalty drop, he then proceeded to hook the ball back into the creek. On this occasion, he removed shoes and socks and barely extricated it and eventually took an eight.

"It knocked the wind out of me. All I wanted to do after that was get in off the course. I was shattered and it was a matter of limping home. That sort of thing really gets to you mentally and I actually did well to get five pars after that," said Harrington, who finished with a 71 for one-under-par 287 and tied 27th position.

In four days of play, Harrington had a total of four-over-par for that 13th hole, which contrasted sharply with his play of the hole on his Masters debut last year when he was a combined two-under for the four rounds. It also ruined what had the potential to be a really special round.

Harrington started with back-to-back birdies at the opening two holes yesterday, chipped in for another birdie at the fifth and then sank a 20-footer for birdie at the seventh on his way to turning in 32 strokes.

"Everything was going along nicely, and all I was thinking about were birdies," he said.

His bogey came at the 11th - the toughest hole statistically on the course - but he bounced back immediately to birdie the 12th, hitting a seven-iron tee-shot into 15 feet.

That was the last good thing to happen to him, though, and the triple bogey eight took the gloss off the round. "I was lost at that stage and just wanted to get in," he said.

Meanwhile, Darren Clarke believed that he didn't get the full reward for the way he played in finishing with a 73 for four-under-par 284, which left him in 24th position.

"I'm hitting the ball better than I have for a long, long time, but I paid severe penalties for any mistakes that I made," he insisted. A case in point was his decision to go for the green in two at the 13th, but he pushed his five-wood slightly and it ended up in the creek.

And, at the 17th, he had 165 yards to the flag and hit a wedge over the back. Both errors resulted in bogeys, and pretty much summed up his day.

Clarke's birdies came at the second, followed immediately by a bogey, then nine straight pars before the bogey at the 13th was followed by birdies at the 15th and 16th, where he hit a six iron to two feet, and then that bogey at the penultimate hole.