McGinley hangs on for the weekend

Guys have slugged it out in an alleyway and looked more refreshed than Paul McGinley did as he trudged off ninth green, his finishing hole, at the Atlanta athletic Club yesterday. For four hours and 23 minutes of his life, he had been put through the wringer - and under the clock by USPGA officials - but emerged with his ambitions intact. If only just.

A second round 72 for a 36-holes total of level-par 140 wasn't exactly what McGinley had in mind before he set out in the hot and humid conditions over the highlands course. By the time he finished, however, McGinley - the only one of the three Irishmen in the field to survive the cut - was just happy to reach the sanctuary of the recorder's hut in the knowledge that he would be around for the weekend.

Having started on the 10th, McGinley's problems really came on the stretch that takes in the 15th to the 18th.

Certainly, they wouldn't be pleased at the top of the Dubliner's list of favourites holes. I n Thursday's first round, he dropped two shots over the stretch; yesterday, he lost three to the card. He three-putted both short holes, the 15th and 17th, and also incurred a bogey on the 18th.

It didn't help, either, that McGinley and playing partners Jonathan Kaye and Stephen Keppler were put on the clock, a situation which the player claimed was caused by having to wait while greenstaff watered the greens as they were the first of the afternoon groups out.

His plight was worsened on the third, his 12th, which he bogeyed after finishing a greenside bunker but he showed his mettle over the next three holes. Firstly, he sank a six-footer to save par ion the fourth; and then followed up with birdies from eight feet and ten feet on the fifth and sixth respectively.

"Once I got back to level par (for the championship), I knew that I had to play conservatively in. At least now I can go at it over the weekend and try to finish up as high as possible. It's a major and I want to perform as well as I can," said McGinley.

He also has one eye on his Ryder Cup place-and, in terms of booking his ticket to the Belfry, a number of players behind him did themselves no favours as Bernard Langer (10th in the qualifying table), Miguel Angel Jimenez (11th), Ian Poulter(12th)and Mathias Gronberg (14th) all missed the cut.