Clarke a bit crusty about greens

GOLF: Some things would test the patience of a saint. The bumpy, crusty greens at Winged Foot Golf Club in the exclusive New York suburb of Mamaroneck for one, as Darren Clarke, a man with enough on his mind not to have to worry about matters of agronomy, discovered yesterday as he sought manfully to keep alive his US Open ambitions.

In terms of ball-striking, few players could match Clarke in the second round, played under a bright blue sky that only served to make the parched greens crustier than ever.

Clarke hit 12 of 14 fairways, including every one on his back nine, but his troubles - on the way to a 72 for a midway total of 145, five-over - came once he reached the putting surfaces.

Despite giving himself chance after chance, the Ulsterman laboured with a putter so cold it seemed as if it had been plunged into the ice buckets on each tee-box.

"The putter is just not performing, really," said an exasperated Clarke, "and you can't contend in a tournament like this if you don't putt well. I'm just taking too many putts.

"The greens are poor basically. They are very, very poor. The balls are bumping and jumping about everywhere, and the combination of the slope and the speed make them very tough to hole putts on."

Clarke took 34 putts yesterday, and 32 on Thursday. Had he ever experienced greens like these at a US Open before?

"No, I haven't."

The worst ever?

"Yep, definitely."

After his round, which had finished with two bogeys in his last three holes, Clarke took some respite in the locker-room, tucking into a well-earned sandwich, before getting around to recount his thoughts.

What happened with his seven-iron approach of 182 yards to the ninth green, his last, which landed a yard on the green and then ran like a scalded cat through the back to nestle in thick rough, typified his sense of grievance.

Of that lie on the finishing hole, Clarke called it "pathetic". He could only chop at it, moving it about five yards onto the green and then missing his par saving putt. "I made some very silly bogeys. I played nicely all day.

"I played lovely, and 72 was by far and away the worst possible score I could have shot and I managed to do it.

"The course is playing brutally tough and you need a few favourable bounces and a little bit of luck if you are going to go low. But with a few less players walking on the greens at the weekend, it might be that little bit easier to hole some putts on them."

Given Clarke's schedule is on a week-to-week basis, depending on how well his wife, Heather, is feeling, it is remarkable that the player should be getting into contention at all in tournaments.

"All I'm trying to be is relaxed at the minute, whenever I get out there with the club in my hand. I try and compete and feel the same as I would if all my other circumstances were normal.

"I want to play well and I want to try and compete, but sometimes I don't just quite perform the way I should do."

Forewarned but unable to rise to the challenge, Tiger Woods (right) was one of a number of high-profile casualties at Winged Foot. The world's number one, with back-to-back rounds of 76, 12-over, missed the cut in a major for the first time as a professional. It ended a streak of 37 cuts in major championships.

Woods wasn't alone in becoming a victim of the West Course, as defending champion Michael Campbell, Sergio Garcia, Tom Lehman, Chris DiMarco, Stuart Appleby and Stephen Ames were others to feel the wrath of the course.