Clarke struggles to get into the swing

Darren Clarke would have wished for a far more appropriate birthday celebration than a round of 74 in the elevated company of Phil Mickelson and Nick Faldo. Still, considering his swing problems, it was a creditable score for the Ulsterman, who was 29 yesterday.

It would certainly have been highly acceptable to his compatriot Padraig Harrington, who struggled desperately on the way to a 77. Particularly depressing was that the round ended with four successive bogeys from the 15th, because he couldn't keep the ball straight, tee to green.

Afterwards, do-it-yourself remedial action was prompted, albeit unintentionally, by a birthday gift from Clarke's occasional practice partner, Colin Montgomerie. According to the Scotsman's wife, Eimear, it was a Swiss army knife - "everyone should have one" - along with a "very rude card."

All of which would have brightened the mood, if that were necessary. As it happened, however, Clarke's spirits were surprisingly good, while he acknowledged his problem as a recurrence of the driving difficulties which beset him during last month's British Open.

"I seem to be stuck in between swings," he said, in a reference to several blocked drives which were largely responsible for his four bogeys. "It's the same as happened to me at Troon. I have yet to feel comfortable about the change I have made to fading the ball."

It caused Clarke to head to the practice ground after the round where his coach, Pete Cowen, was waiting to help him, hopefully, towards halfway survival this evening. "I can't remember when I last played a round without a birdie," added the Ulsterman.

The group were warned for slow play at the turn but it didn't seem to affect Clarke, given his performance over the homeward journey. In fact three of his four bogeys came on the front nine - at the second, where he blocked his drive into right rough; at the fourth, where he missed the green right and at the eighth where the trees on the right again presented an irresistible traget.

Then came a well-scrambled par at the ninth where, after missing the green, he pitched to eight feet and sank the putt.

And he made another great save at the short 10th, holing an 18-footer.

From then on, Clarke worked hard to maintain a productive swing. It was something of a battle but he succeeded admirably until the 16th where the best he could do from a blocked drive was to chase a recovery into a greenside trap.

Prior to that, however, he made a superb par at the 430yard 14th, after finding a very nasty lie in the left rough off the tee. With a shot of 179 yards to the flag, he powered a six-iron onto the green, sending uprooted strands of lush rough in all directions. "Brute force and ignorance," he grinned, diluting the technical quality of the shot.

Meanwhile, he was left with mixed feelings about the form of his playing partners. "I have never seen Nick play so badly," he said of Faldo. But he conceded that there was much to admire in the short-game skills of Mickelson.

"That pitch-in of his at the 16th was a real gem," he said in a reference to a glorious effort which went straight into the hole for a birdie three. It became necessary after the American had blocked his approach so badly right, that it actually finished wide of the greenside bunker.

The only good thing about his situation was that the pin was towards the far side of the green, 14 yards in from the front and six yards from the left edge. In the event, Mickelson played one of his famous parachute shots, landing the ball inch-perfect on the putting surface from where it ran unerringly into the cup.

Unlike Clarke, whose early start allowed him to be finished by lunch, Padraig Harrington went into action in the fifth last three-ball of the day, with Robert Gamez and the Paraguayan, Carlos Franco. And it soon became apparent that the extensive work he had done in practice here hadn't solved a recurring swing problem.

"My timing is off with every shot," he said afterwards. "I'm getting ahead of the ball and hitting it right. Then when I tried to correct the problem, I pulled my approach shots to the 17th and 18th.

As it happened he was under serious pressure after only four holes, by which stage he was three over par. He three-putted the first for a bogey and run up a double-bogey six at the fourth where he drove into rough on the right and took two hacks to get back on to the fairway.

"It was always going to be tough the way I was striking the ball," Harrington added. What did he need to make the cut? "I don't know, he replied. "My only concern now is to try and get my swing back and play as well as I can tomorrow."

And with dusk closing in rapidly, he was off to the practice ground.