Golf: Double blow looks to have cost Clarke dear

There was no doubt which two holes Darren Clarke anticipated reflecting on most on his journey home from the Masters.

Barring the greatest comeback in major championship history, a chance to achieve his first major title and with it a £2m sponsors' bonus slipped through the Ulsterman’s grip late on Saturday.

Clarke discovered, or rather was reminded, at the 16th and 18th holes that those twin imposters triumph and disaster, success and failure, death and glory travel in tandem at Augusta National, separated by only a few feet.

It was all looking so good as he went to the turn in the third round in 33 to be level with Tiger Woods and only two off the lead.

Four pars at the start of the back nine left him with more ground to make up, but the 32-year-old started to do it when he holed an eight-foot birdie putt at the 14th.

Little did he suspect what was just around the corner. At the short 16th his tee shot came down what he reckoned was about nine inches from where it would have set him up with an opportunity for another birdie.

But those nine inches made all the difference. The ball finished in a bunker and with the flag on a tiny ledge he needed a miracle to splash out close.

It did not happen. He was left with a 40-footer back up the slope for par and three-putted.

Then at the last, a hole he had birdied in the first round and parred in the second, he double-bogeyed again.

After pulling, ever so slightly again, his drive into more sand he came out heavy, chipped on and three-putted once more.

"‘I’m definitely too far back," he said sadly after signing for a 72 and five-under aggregate, which left him seven adrift of Woods in joint 16th place.

"‘If I had parred the last three I might have had a chance, but not now."

It was the back nine on Sunday that had done for Lee Westwood after he had taken the lead two years ago. For Clarke it was the back nine Saturday which cost him so dear, as it had been in the 1997 Open at Troon after he had gone four clear.

He had an opportunity to repair the damage then and finished second. This time, as he teed off in the last round, he was resigned to the fact that the damage was too great.