Clarke loses the battle on the greens

There could hardly have been a sharper contrast in their putting techniques. The bigger man had a silkensmooth, orthodox stroke, while his playing partner was now employing the broom handle, having been tortured by the yips at various stages of a fascinating career.

Darren Clarke struggled on the slick slopes of Augusta's greens on the way to a 78 to miss the cut; Bernhard Langer holed putts ranging in length up to 50 feet while carding a sparkling round of 66 and an aggregate of 142. It hardly seemed fair, but as Jack Nicklaus once remarked, nobody ever said that golf had to be fair.

It has to be said, however, that Clarke reacted sportingly to what must have been a bitter disappointment, given his eighth-place finish here last year.

"There really isn't much to say, other than I've worked hard only to find that almost every 50-50 situation went against me," he said. "It's hard to score when you've had 75 putts over the two days."

Langer's round was all the more remarkable for a highly controversial incident at the long eighth, where he turned a potential bogey into a spectacular birdie. From a decidedly poor, three-iron second shot, which was pulled badly down the slope short of the green, his ball landed in a hazard, dominated by trees and marshy soil.

With a rules official in attendance, he confronted the problem of hitting a cut-up lob-wedge shot, despite having to cope with a pine cone behind his ball. Langer asked the official if he could remove the cone and was told he could not. But he was permitted to touch it on his backswing.

"I suspect I moved it," he said afterwards. To my eyes he most certainly did. Which meant that had Langer taken his action without the permission of a rules official, he would have been penalised two strokes for a breach of Rule 23-1. It states: "Except when both the loose impediment and the ball lie in or touch the same hazard, any loose impediment may be removed without penalty."

As it happened, the German made perfect contact with the ball and sent it soaring over pine trees to finish 20 feet from the pin. And the putt went down for a birdie four. Afterwards, when I approached Will Nicholson, chairman of the Augusta National Competition Committees, about the matter, he said: "We were wrong. And it is our style to admit it when we're wrong. But there was no breach of rules by Bernhard in that he did as instructed."

"That got me going," said Langer of the unexpected birdie. And he proceeded to emphasise his well-being by going on to card what has to be described as an outrageous birdie at the ninth, to reach the turn in 33 - three under par.

This time, from an over-zealous approach, the ball came to rest on the most treacherous slope on the course, 50 feet above the hole. It was the sort of situation in which one would feel safe offering a competent club golfer generous odds about getting down in three putts.

Langer made it in one, and with his arms stretched upwards in triumph, responded more excitedly than he has done for many of his tournament triumphs. Was it a victory leap? "Definitely not," he replied with a smile. "I only do those when I'm in Ireland." Which was a reference to his emotion on capturing the European Open of 1995.

Clarke, who experienced no recurrence of Thursday's back twinges, had only one birdie on an outward 37 and it came, unexpectedly, at the difficult fifth, where he sank a 30-foot putt. But there was no cause for despondency, as he knew at the halfway stage of the round that the cut would not be tight.

His tournament was effectively ended, however, by major blunders at the 10th and 13th. The first of these was a double-bogey which resulted from a poor chip from off the front of the green, followed by three putts.

As so often happens in tournament golf, he couldn't wait to make amends. And with the long 13th offering a clear birdie opportunity, he crushed a three-wood off the tee. In attempting to turn the ball around the severe, right-to-left dog-leg, however, he overdid matters and ended in Rae's Creek to run up a crippling seven.

His overall performance had interesting resonances of Ronan Rafferty's Augusta National experience. As Europe's number one from the previous season, Rafferty made his debut here in 1990, when he played admirably to be tied 14th.

But having qualified for a return invitation the following year, he missed the cut just as Clarke has done. Whatever about its fairness, Augusta National doesn't get any easier.