After walking off the 18th green at the end of a gruelling test, they gave each other a bewildered look, not quite sure what to say. Yet when Paul McGinley (76) and Padraig Harrington (72) reflected later on the day's events, they realised their hopes of retaining the World Cup at Gulf Harbour, were still very much alive.
On one under par at the halfway stage, they share sixth position with Argentina, five strokes behind leaders England. But as they discovered at Kiawah Island last year, such scoring represents a decidedly modest gap in this form of competition.
Still, as other teams, notably the Americans, had been forced to accept, the Irish pair were aware of a glorious chance squandered. Six under par for the tournament after Harrington had birdied the long 11th, they conceded five shots to the course over the remaining holes.
"That's horrific what I just did," said a stunned Harrington after he had bogeyed four holes from the 14th, including the last three. "It's my fault we're in this position. It should never have happened."
Displaying a remarkable upturn in form since his struggle of Thursday, Harrington was four-under-par for the round when he came to the difficult 14th. There, a solidly-hit drive into the wind found the fairway, only to roll back off a slope and finish eventually behind a bush.
"It was a bad break and I made the mistake of letting it get to me," he admitted. In the event, he took three to get down from off the front of the 16th green, dropped another shot at the next and sent a mis-hit wedge careering through the green, downwind at the last.
McGinley, meanwhile, carded four successive bogeys from the turn to go to five over par for his round, giving back to the course the strokes he had earned with such delightful accuracy the previous day. But there was the consolation, albeit a modest one, of becoming one of only four players so far, to birdie the 16th.
With a three-wood second shot of 216 yards, uphill and into the teeth of the wind, McGinley sent the ball to 30 feet from the pin and sank the putt for a very rare birdie. The only other players to master this forbidding challenge were South Africa's David Frost on Thursday and the two Mexicans, Esteban Toledo and Cesar Perez yesterday.
Later McGinley said: "We're still very much in it but we'll have to gather ourselves mentally before the third round. There is also the fact that with England and Scotland coming through, we now have stronger teams ahead of us than after the opening day."
Harrington's late torment was a perfect example of the mental strain imposed by a difficult course in extremely testing conditions. By his own admission he wasn't up to it, whereas when Nick Faldo was asked if the pin placements were too demanding, he replied: "I think all the pin positions were fine."
Clearly they weren't, but Faldo's refusal to acknowledge as much, gave him a crucial edge over most of his rivals. As McGinley remarked: "When Padraig needed to be at his sharpest over the last five holes, he was mentally drained. That was the problem."
From their attitude last night, one anticipates a renewed determination from the Irish duo when, with Canada as partners, battle resumes from the third last group. They have no intention of giving up the trophy just yet.
