Clarke and Harrington take major step
Clarke added a 70 to Thursday’s 72 to move to two under par and four behind the halfway pacesetter Chad Campbell.
Harrington looked to be out of the hunt when he crashed to five over after seven holes of the first round but he has played the last 29 in six under and so stands just five adrift of the leader.
Clarke believes his healthy position is largely due to a relaxed frame of mind he brought here after a relaxing holiday with his family in the Bahamas. He makes no secret of how much he would love to capture his first green jacket over the weekend but in a clear reference to his wife Heather, who is continuing her battle with cancer, he pointed out that “there are a lot more who want to win this more than I do”.
“I would love to do it but it’s not that important,” said Clarke.
Clarke began his day with six straight pars before dropping a shot at the 7th, where he bunkered his approach after a huge, fairway-splitting drive. He appeared to compound the blunder when he again found sand off the 8th tee but came out well before pitching to 10 feet and holing the putt. His approach to the 9th landed 12 feet behind the stick, spun back to a couple of yards and he again dispatched the birdie putt. Just as his gain at number eight had looked unlikely, his par at the 13th was even more so.
He was between a six and seven iron, chose the former and allowed the shot to leak away into Rae’s Creek. However, he got up and down to salvage a five and parred his way to the last, where a fine drive found a deep divot in the centre of the fairway.
He admitted that the red mist might well have descended on the Clarke of old. Instead, the new version took out a nine iron and fairly smashed a shot of 152 yards to a couple of feet.
“Two under par after two rounds here is pretty good,” he said. “It’s the best feeling I’ve had in a major for a long time. I’m very relaxed. I feel like I’m still on holiday and I’ll go and have a few drinks this afternoon and a bit of fun tonight. I have been more patient than I’ve been for quite some time. If I can stay like this for the weekend, I can get right up there. You know, sometimes when you get completely away from the game and hardly touch the clubs, it brings back what is really important, and golf ain’t that important.
“Maybe it’s something to with Aboca (Bahamas) last week, I’ve forgotten what I should be doing and just gone out and hit it and it’s working. I’m not bothered by anything. If I make a mistake, I make a mistake, and I made a few today. I tried to hit a little soft six iron into seven and again into 13 and got into trouble each time. Before this, I might have been perturbed to say the least. I took my punishment at seven and at 13 chipped it to three feet to save my par. The same when I saw the ball in the divot at the last. And if I keep doing what I’m doing, hopefully, I’ll give myself a chance.”
For sheer grit and refusal to give up, there are few to match Padraig Harrington, and he has underlined that point graphically over the last couple of days.
Desperate situations demand desperate remedies so he forgot all about defence, having tumbled to five over after seven on Thursday. He got it back to one over by the end of the day and yesterday’s 70 was a combination of some superb attacking approach play and typical defiance when the bounce went against him, as it will always do somewhere along the way at Augusta.
“If I can keep the same attitude over the next two days and try to make birdies, I’ll have a chance,” he reasoned. “I am swinging the club better than I ever have. I have improved it and I am comfortable with it. I just have to bring it out on the golf course.
“There wasn’t a turning point. I was never in a comfort zone. Bob Rotella (his mind coach) walked the entire 18 and he was pleased with my mental approach. We work on overcoming adversity as well as dealing with things when they’re going well. I was a bit down early on yesterday but I stayed positive, and came back strongly and stuck to my guns today.”
Harrington birdied three of the four par fives before reserving the highlight for the 18th, where he unleased a drive of 315 yards and followed with a perfect wedge of 134 yards that pulled up a couple of yards behind the hole.
He followed Clarke’s example by tapping in confidently for his birdie to set up a weekend of high expectation and hope for the large Irish contingent in Augusta.
Alas, Paul McGinley has been unable to bring his “A” game and both he and Brian McElhinney have had their direct interest terminated.
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