Darren Clarke may face more important 10 foot putts in his life, but the one he holed on the 18th green last evening - at a time when his patience was wearing thin - to survive the cut in the Murphy's Irish Open was pretty significant too.

If he'd missed the birdie putt, it would have meant his first missed cut since the South African Open in faraway January.

So it was that the world's number 13 could, just about, contemplate some weekend golf. "I suppose I'll get my usual Saturday morning golf society tee time," he remarked.

In fact, Clarke will be out in the third pairing of the day. Clearly disappointed with his scoring, however, after shooting a 72 for level-par 142, Clarke confessed that he had actually discussed his situation with Ryder Cup captain Sam Torrance, who was one of his playing partners.

"What did you do Sam, when you were going through a run of form like this?" asked Clarke. "Be patient," came the reply. Which simply confirmed what Clarke had already figured out for himself. That time for patience is running out, though.

"I've waited for things to sort themselves out for the past five weeks or longer and patience is wearing thin. I'm hitting a lot of good shots, my concentration is very good and I came into this tournament with such high hopes.

I'm playing well in practice and the pro-ams and getting chances in the tournament but I am not finishing them off."

In fairness to Clarke, his determination to survive the cut was clear on the last. Knowing that he probably required a birdie on the last, his tee-shot hit a spectator and dived into the trees.

He played a superb recovery shot back out on to the fairway and then hit his pitch to 10 feet and holed the all-important putt.

For Eamonn Darcy, yesterday was also a trying day. Particularly around the picturesque area down by the estuary, and Darcy wasn't admiring the view as he found water on three successive holes.

His tee-shot on the 11th trickled into the pond on the right; this drive on the 12th was pulled into water, and his tee-shot on the 13th again found water.

The result was a sequence of bogey-bogey-double bogey which meant that Darcy signed for a 75 to be on two-under-par 140.

"I was gutted after that," said Darcy, who did well to recover with four straight pars before adding a birdie on the 18th. "To be honest, I was struggling on the greens all day, being blown away by the wind, and it is a pity that I found a bit of extra trouble by going into the water on those holes."

Paul McGinley was another to survive on the cut mark of 142 but, for the second day running, he was extremely disappointed with his putting. In fact, he has taken a total of 64 putts over the first two days.

From an Irish perspective, the unluckiest two players were Francis Howley and Damien McGrane who both missed the cut by one shot.

Howley agonisingly watched his 15 foot eagle putt on the final hole lip out, and that was the difference between making the cut and having the weekend off.