US PGA Championship: The facial expressions told the story more uccinctly than any calculator; the figures had been totted up and, for Darren larke - despite a brave rearguard action yesterday after his opening day's ravails - and Paul McGinley, the strokes accumulated over the first two ounds had come up one too many.

For both, a "missed cut" would be entered into the column under US PGA on their curricula vitae for the year 2003.

At least Padraig Harrington survived into the weekend at Oak Hill Country Club, but it was a darn close shave for the Dubliner, ranked ninth in the world, who made it on the cut line.

Before he headed out for his second round, he'd phoned home to see how his wife, Caroline, expecting the couple's first child any day, was faring. He was told "there wasn't a budge, nothing stirring".

If that should have set Harrington's mind at ease (and he claimed the pregnancy was not a distraction), his play - in shooting a second-round 76 for eight-over-par 148 - seemed to indicate that his mind was not as focused on his golf as it needed to be.

Too many loose shots crept into his game, both off the tee and on approach shots to the green. Indeed, he only found five of 14 possible fairways.

It was one of those days when Harrington went around 18 holes without finding a single birdie, instead producing a 76 that included a double bogey, four bogeys and 13 pars.

"I'd a lot of putts that hit the hole, that horseshoed out, but unfortunately they were always for saves," said Harrington.

Still, for much of the round, Harrington was comfortably inside the cut line and stubbornly refusing to free-fall down the field.

Then, out of the blue, he suffered a double-bogey six on the fifth, his 14th hole, and the grind became even tougher.

Those two dropped shots came about because of a poor drive on arguably the toughest driving hole on the course.

He pushed it right, into the creek, and after taking his penalty drop, could then only chip the ball back out to the fairway.

That double bogey moved him to six over and, when he picked up a further bogey on the eighth, his penultimate hole, where he drove into a fairway bunker, he was edging closer to the trouble zone.

On the ninth, his last, Harrington did manage to find the fairway for only the fifth time in his round.

From there, though, his four-iron approach finished a foot over the back in nasty rough - "I was dead," he said - and his chip-out finished 20 feet by the hole.

The par-save attempt hit the hole but, on days such as these, the ball never drops; and it didn't.

Asked if he was more frustrated or disappointed, he replied: "Neither . . . I'd be frustrated if I played well (and shot 76), and I didn't play well enough to be disappointed."

Clarke did play well yesterday, producing a level-par round of 70. But the damage had been inflicted on Thursday - when he shot 79.

For McGinley, a poor drive on the ninth - his last hole - led to a finishing bogey, a shot that proved extremely costly in his quest to make the cut.

He missed out by one, after shooting a 76 for 149. His real downfall over the two days, though, was his putting: he had a combined 66 putts for the two days, 33 on each.