Big guns suffer at the Manor

Favourite Retief Goosen and defending champion Robert Karlsson, the top two players in the Wales Open at Celtic Manor, both went crashing out at the halfway point tonight.

Two weeks before he tries for a third US Open victory in seven years Goosen, the only member of the world’s top 25 taking part in the event, slumped to a second-round 73 on the par 69 lay-out.

It completes a miserable two weeks for the South African star before he heads across the Atlantic for the second major of the year. He also made an early exit from the BMW PGA Championship last Friday.

“It’s disappointing, that’s for sure,” said Goosen.

“I’m working on a few things, but they’re not coming together yet.

“I’ll hang around for a couple of days and do some practice, then I’m playing in Memphis next week, so I hope I can find something there. I struggled on the greens here – they were extremely slow.”

Playing partner Karlsson, another who is Oakmont-bound, had a 69, but a two-over total, three better than Goosen, was still not good enough on the same course where he set European Tour records for 36 and 54 holes last June by opening 61-63-65.

Their departures left Colin Montgomerie as the highest-ranked player still standing in the tournament – but if you think he should have been happy after a 64 that was his lowest round for exactly a year, then think again.

The eight-time European number one moved up into the top 25 from 81st at the start of the day, yet he was positively disgusted not to be closer to surprise early leader Mads Vibe-Hastrup of Denmark.

“I got my game back together and got half of it right, but the other half is terrible,” said Montgomerie, who will be making his 64th attempt to win a major on the course where he lost a play-off to Ernie Els in 1994.

“My putting is the weakest part of anyone’s game out here. That could have been anything.”

And this a day after he summed up his opening 70 in five words – “miss, miss, miss, miss, miss”.

As it was he improved from one over par to four under, which leaves him four strokes to make up on 28-year-old Vibe-Hastrup, who is trying to emulate compatriot Anders Hansen’s success at Wentworth last weekend.

The big difference between the two is that Hansen had won the European Tour’s flagship event before, whereas Vibe-Hastrup does not have even a top-three finish to show for 122 starts on the circuit.

Ranked a lowly 442nd in the world and 149th on this season’s Order of Merit, the Challenge Tour graduate achieved a career-best 63 thanks in part to a spectacular eagle on the long 16th, where his three-wood approach rolled to within a foot of the flag.

That was the high point. The low point quickly followed when his bag fell over on the 17th fairway and “something happened” with the driver.

“I think one of the screws got loose,” he said.

“When I went to tee off on the last I could hear it rattling. I hit it any way.”

On the eight-under mark, Vibe-Hastrup is one in front of Scots Alastair Forsyth and Steven O’Hara, round in 65 and 66 respectively, and also Australian Brett Rumford, who still had three holes to play.

Forsyth’s only victory in more than 200 events came in Malaysia five years ago, while O’Hara is still seeking his first win six years after being a team-mate of Luke Donald and Nick Dougherty in the Walker Cup.

After an eagle and two birdies in the first four holes – straight after a 105-minute fog delay – Forsyth admits he thought of becoming the first player to score 59 on the circuit.

But the remaining 14 holes saw only two more birdies and two bogeys.

“When I three-putted the 11th that was the end of it,” he commented.

O’Hara said: “The only problem was I warmed up three times. I was already pretty tired because by the time I teed off I’d hit about 200 balls.”

Paul Broadhurst, another of a Tour record nine players who shared the first day pace, added a 67 to be just two back and may yet make perfect amends for his closing 80 when leading last Sunday.

In the group alongside him now is Bradley Dredge, trying to become the first home winner of the title.