Darren Clarke’s injury-plagued season has taken a turn for the better. The 53-year-old Northern Irishman – without a win on the Champions Tour since his success in the Sanford International last September – added a second round 67 to his opening 65 to assume the halfway lead in the Seniors Open on the Kings Course at Gleneagles, putting him on course for a first seniors Major title.
Without a top-10 on tour this season, Clarke moved into the outright lead with two strokes to spare over American Scott Parel with an octet of players, among them Pádraig Harrington, a shot further back and still very much in the hunt.
Clarke was over par at the turn but came home in 32 and believes the key to staying in the upper echelons of the leaderboard is keeping the ball out of the rough.
“Around the front nine today, I was so-so,” he said. “My right foot slipped a couple of times but apart from that I played really nicely. I’m trying to hit a lot of fairways and give myself decent looks. All the way around the back nine I kept hitting nice shots and could have been a few better. But, you know, it’s the way it is.
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“If you keep it in the fairway around here you can score but if you start missing the fairways it’s going to be a struggle because you’re playing for fliers. But the fact is so far I’ve done a decent job to get them on the fairways.”
Clarke did not get off to the best of starts, sandwiching a birdie on the fourth with bogeys on the second and seventh as he turned in 35.
But he took advantage of the par-five 10th and then really found his groove, making two putts from a long way off the 14th green for a birdie and picking up a shot on the next from 12 feet.
Clarke was well short of the green in two at the par-five last after crashing his second into the saddle of the fairway, but he put his pitch to six feet to finish off well.
Canadian Brooke Henderson picked up where she left off by firing a second straight 64 for a midway total of 14-under-par 128 to take a three shots lead over American Nelly Korda at the midpoint of the Amundi Evian Championship, the fourth Major of the women’s season.
Both Irish players in the field – Stephanie Meadow and Leona Maguire – survived the halfway cut but have some work to do to make any inroads in moving into contention.
Meadow signed for a second round 69 for 140 to lie in tied-42nd while Maguire produced two later birdies, on the 14th and 17th, to add a 71 to her opening 70 for a total of 141 in tied-54th.
Henderson was very much in control of her game. The 24-year-old carded eight birdies and suffered a lone bogey in a hugely impressive display at Evian Resort on the shores of Lake Geneva, getting her round off to a flying start with a 30-foot putt for birdie on her opening hole.
“It feels really nice to get off to a fast start in a Major championship. It feels like it has been a while. To get this far under par is really awesome,” said Henderson, who is seeking a second career Major to add to her win in the 2016 KPMG Women’s PGA Championship.
Korda shot a second round 67 to sit alone in second place, while her sister, Jessica, was one of the big casualties in failing to survive the cut which fell on 142.
Paul Waring posted a second round 70 for 133 to take a two shots lead into the weekend in the Cazoo Classic at Hillside in England on the DP World Tour, where all seven Irish players in the field missed the cut.
On the Challenge Tour, Alejandro Del Rey recovered from a triple-bogey on his first hole to post a 66 for 134 to take a share of the midway lead with Mateusz Gradecki and Manuel Elvira in the Big Green Egg German Challenge at Wittelsbacher Golf Club, where Corkman John Murphy moved into tied-sixth with a second round 66, three shots adrift.
Meanwhile, on the Alps Tour, Waterford’s Gary Hurley continued his good form of late with a second round 63 for a 36-holes total of 11-under-par 133 to lie three shots behind leader Julien Paltrinieri in the Roma Alps Open at Parco de’Medici. Paul McBride (68 for 138), Jonathan Yates (70 for 140) and Michael Young (68 for 14) also made the cut.
