Flawless Clarke gets off to a flying start
His nearest pursuers were Sergio Garcia and the 22-year-old US amateur champion Ricky Barnes (who outscored his playing partner Tiger Woods by an incredible seven strokes) while next best on 70 were Nick Price and Mike Weir.
Sadly, it was a disastrous day for Pádraig Harrington, who managed only a single birdie in a five over 77 that leaves him with a major battle on his hands to qualify for the closing two rounds.
He wasn't in bad company given that Woods shot 76 and the next two most favoured players, Davis Love 111 and Ernie Els, slumped to 77 and 79 respectively, while Phil Mickelson settled for 76.
The rain finally relented and a gloomy, chilly morning actually gave way to glorious afternoon sunshine, predicted to continue through the weekend.
So the odds now very much favour the tournament finishing on schedule tomorrow evening when it is to also to be ardently hoped that the farcical spectating conditions will also have improved appreciably.
The walkways yesterday were a deep, soggy mess that spoiled many a good pair of golf shoes and a lot of clothing.
The golfers themselves didn't escape in making their way from the greens to the tees, but otherwise the course had recovered remarkably well from its pounding by the rain storms of the past week.
It all became a stroll in the sunshine for Clarke who, however, wasn't too happy at the prospect of a mere 45 minutes for rest and a bite to eat before going out to tackle the first ten or 11 holes of his second round.
"I made very few mistakes, which is always the key around here," he reported.
"I got one lucky break at the 7th where I pushed my tee shot and the ball hit a tree and came back on to the fairway. I've been playing well this past while.
"It's just a case of being patient, hanging in there and waiting for something good to happen and it's happened today. It's the first round and hopefully, I can keep playing like this.
"It was not far off my best-ever round, I hit it to around a foot three or four times."
Taking a keen interest in Clarke's performance was the highly respected coach David Leadbetter, who said midway through the round:
"Darren can definitely win this. I've never seen him hitting the ball so well," while the marshal at his opening hole was heard to comment "that's the longest drive I've seen here all day."
Clarke, essentially, is a confidence player. When things go right, he feeds off the momentum and any number of birdies are liable to follow.
But one bad bounce or one wayward shot can have a shattering result on his morale, and that is why you can never relax when the big man is strutting his stuff.
Accordingly, a 25-footer for a birdie at the 10th, his 1st, was the ideal start and to be fair, three putts from 40 feet for a bogey at the 11th left him completely unfazed.
He cracked a five wood on to the 13th green and two putted for a birdie, and a nine iron to eight feet at 14 was followed by a sweetly-holed birdie putt before the round really took off at the long 15th where another, long accurate drive was followed by a six iron to 30 feet.
The resultant eagle putt was greeted with a triumphant wave of the putter and by a thunderous cheer from the masses.
A pushed drive and an overcooked approach could have led to self-imposed trouble at both the 17th and 18th, but each time he chipped close, his recovery from the gallery seats at the last being a particularly delicate and warmly applauded effort.
Clarke moved to five under when his approach to the 1st pulled up less than a yard away. He was quickly joined on that mark by Sergio Garcia, who was playing immediately ahead and making for a fascinating European duel at the head of affairs.
The Spaniard, though, failed to stay the pace whereas Clarke continued on his flamboyant way, knocking his approach shots to the 1st and 3rd virtually stone dead. After that, it was par all the way for the big man, good, solid stuff with very few worrying moments.
"The eagle wasn't a turning point, I was already two under at that point, but it's always nice to get another little piece of crystal from Augusta," he glowed.
"The golf course was playing very long and pretty tough as you can see from the scoring so I'm delighted with 66. I didn't have too many mudballs today, maybe I was one of the lucky ones."
Few had gone into the Masters feeling as confident and comfortable as Pádraig Harrington, but you would never have thought so by the manner in which he struggled with all aspects of his game throughout a bitterly disappointing day.
From the time he hooked his drive off the first tee and had to sink a 20-footer to salvage his par, Harrington was in big trouble.
His tee shot to the 2nd was even worse, ending up so deep in the trees to the left that he had to chip out backwards and this time there was no escape.
Having saved par with a 12 foot putt at the 4th, he took two to get out of a bunker at the 5th and ran up a double bogey six.
He bogeyed the short 6th as well before a semblance of normality saw Harrington make par at each of the next five.
In spite of all his woes, he still walked to the side of the 7th fairway with a broad smile on his face and his hand outstretched to meet for the first time his second cousin Joey Harrington, who if anything makes more money than Pádraig in his role as quarter-back with the Detroit Lions.
It made for a delightful little cameo as he was called over by his wife, Caroline, and said: "I'm glad we're meeting now because I might be a bit grumpy afterwards."
Three putts followed at number 12 and he missed from six feet for the birdie at the 13th he so desperately needed if he were to rescue his round.
He did pick up a stroke at the 17th but gave it back immediately at the last.
In his first visit to Augusta in 2000, Harrington began with a 76 but redeemed himself on the following day with a 69 and eventually finished in a share of 19th. He was the first to agree he needed to improve appreciably in the second round to do just that.
"A couple of poor drives put me on the backfoot and I was struggling from there," he conceded. "I didn't try to chase, I didn't change anything.
"I made a couple of clubbing errors, went over the back of the 5th and 6th, compounded a few mistakes and didn't make birdies at a few holes where I had a chance and then three putted 12, it was one of those days."
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