February 16, 2011
By Staff Reporter
By John Manley
In the hullabaloo surrounding another Tiger Woods masterpiece, otherwise high-profile golfers get lost in his long shadow.
At the Masters in Augusta, Ga., last weekend, Darren Clarke and Padraig Harrington were sent home richer than when they arrived, but they played in relative obscurity. Each had his own personal Waterloo to account for his lack of success.
Clarke finished in 24th place, shooting four-under-par 284 (72-67-72-73), which left him 12 strokes behind Woods. Clarke’s bounty amounted to $53,760.
Harrington tied for 27th place at 287 (75-69-72-71), and took home $40,600.
Clarke, whose best finish here was an eighth-place tie in 1998, teased his partisans with a second round of five-under 67, which pulled him up to 12th place on the leaderboard, five shots off leader Chris DiMarco, and three behind Woods.
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Clarke began that round with a birdie on the first hole, then bagged birds on four out of five holes, beginning with the seventh. He was four under for Saturday’s third round, through 15 holes, but quickly disintegrated, racking up double bogeys on both 16 and 18 to finish even for the day. Had he merely recorded par on both holes, he would have started Sunday three shots behind Woods, and not seven.
Since Woods has a different kind of karma with Augusta than Greg Norman has had, there was no reason to believe that a seven-stroke deficit could be made up, and neither Woods nor Clarke did anything to disabuse the gallery of such a notion.
Harrington, likewise, went from Easy Street to Skid Row in a few short steps. He birdied the first two holes on Thursday and anything seemed possible. He bogeyed number four, but strung pars together through the 12th hole. Then the bogeys came in quick succession. He bogeyed 13, 14, 15 and 17 to finish the round three over par.
A 69 on Friday restored a semblance of normalcy and allowed Harrington to make the cut. He had an unexceptional round on Saturday, finishing even. He then blazed the front nine on Sunday, going out in four-under 32. But that good came undone on No. 13, when Harrington issued forth a triple-bogey eight. His previous best finish here was 19th position last year.