Darren Clarke’s major recovery didn’t come to fruition at the Regions Tradition as he fell to a second round of 74 at Greystone Golf and Country Club.
Clarke was moving in the right direction after ten holes but three bogeys in his last five holes including two in a row to finish saw him drift back to two-over and a share of 56th place.
That leaves the 2011 Open champion fifteen shots behind Australian Richard Green who birdied his last two holes to remain in front on thirteen-under.
It was a round of 68 for Green who is one shot clear of Steven Alker.
“Yeah, it was nice. It felt a little bit like probably what I should have got out of the day. I hit a lot of great iron shots and set up a lot of birdie chances and just missed ’em all. They’re a bit tricky, some of the reads today, so I was pleased to have finished well.”
Green had shot an opening 63 so he was pleased to follow it up with a solid round.
“I’m not sure, I think it’s just the law of averages really with the amount of times you actually do shoot blinding rounds of golf like that. It’s just difficult to do in golf all the time. As a professional golfer you’d probably like to think you’re sort of minus 3, minus 2 handicap, somewhere like that, so anything better than that’s actually exceptional.
“So it’s rare to do that, and then to come and try to do it again, it’s hard to do mentally. It’s possible, it’s always possible, but laws of averages say otherwise, don’t they. I’m happy to have gone out and had a few birdies still and set up a lot of chances. Lots of good signs.
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