Darren Clarke suffered the indignity of missing the cut by an embarrassing 10 shots in his first tournament of the season when he followed up his first-round 77 with a six-over-par 78 at East London yesterday. The Ulsterman is spending two weeks in South Africa and is reportedly being paid £125,000 sterling in appearance money. The sponsor of next week's tournament in Sun City will hope to get rather more exposure out of the world number 11 than Mercedes managed here.
"Yesterday I had nine holes where I played well; today I had none," admitted Clarke. "I hit the ball poorly, didn't deserve to make the cut and got my just rewards. It's obviously not what I was hoping for, and there is a lot of work to be done."
First-round leader Hennie Otto of South Africa held on to his overnight lead after a second-round 70 took him to nine under - one ahead of compatriot Roger Wessels and England's Greg Owen who defied tricky winds to card a three-under 69 and go eight under. Owen missed out on a share of the lead when he bogeyed the par-four 18th. The 28-year-old from Mansfield misjudged the wind and under-clubbed with his approach, leaving it short of the green. From there he failed to get up and down, but was delighted to be in contention.
"You never know what's in store when you start in wind like we had today, but my home course Coxmoor is on top of a hill and I know how to play in these conditions," he said. Owen was amused to be 19 shots better than Clarke after two rounds but said: "Darren's a great player and I'm sure he'll have a great year. If I can stay 19 ahead of him consistently I'll have a great year." Otto held on to his lead after a very mixed second round. He made two bogeys and a double bogey on the back nine, where he started his round, but played the inward loop in 32 shots with five birdies in six holes. He said: "I'm still a little uncomfortable when I'm standing over the ball, but I can feel some form coming back. I didn't get too down on myself when I was dropping shots on the back nine - I knew I'd have birdie chances on the front nine because it was mostly downwind.
"The par-five third is normally a driver and a three-wood, but today I only needed an eight-iron. And believe me it hasn't really blown yet, this is just a little breeze for East London." Wessels was one of 54 players who had to return early yesterday to complete their first rounds after Thursday's lightning delays.
He duly completed his 67 and then added a 69 for an eight-under total that stood for a long time as the wind freshened and sent scores soaring.
Another early starter was the Welshman Bradley Dredge who is at seven under alongside Germany's Tobias Dier, whose 66 was the day's best. England's Justin Rose made the cut comfortably with a 69.
