'One mistake too many'

THE virtually unknown Englishman David Lynn leads, Padraig Harrington is out and the leading Irishman is Peter Lawrie.

Those were the most salient developments from an extraordinary day's golf on the second day of the Nissan Irish Open at Portmarnock yesterday. This time the weather was on its best behaviour with a fresh breeze testing the players but with no rain to disturb the players or spectators. For some strange reason, though, the atmosphere was remarkably muted, especially in the afternoon when the marquee threesome of Michael Campbell, Thomas Bjorn and Padraig Harrington failed utterly to spark.

On Thursday, they had shot 17 under par between them. This time they were a total of three over with Harrington suffering most grievously. He looked to be right in the hunt when a birdie at the 2nd moved him to four under for the championship. From there home, however, he got little or nothing right and eventually signed for a 76 and one over par overall, a stroke outside the cut mark. Thomas Bjorn, who had set the course alight with a 64 on Thursday, at last seemed to suffer a reaction after his Open Championship frustrations and, like Harrington, simply made too many mistakes on his way to a 74. Campbell was the one to escape the malaise in the threeball and a nicely compiled 69 pushed him to nine under par and within a shot of the surprise leader.