AS DARREN CLARKE reeled off three birdies in a row to reach -2 at The Open, many early-morning spectators must have thought ‘He couldn’t do it again, could he?’
The 44-year-old won the Claret Jug back in 2011 and was putting together a handy charge when his round was hit with a depth charge on the par four sixth hole. An wayward drive forced the Tyrone native to chip out onto the fairway. His iron approach to the green sneaked into a bunker on the lefthand side.
What followed, in that bunker, is the sort of scuttlebutt usually reserved for high handicappers and fairweather golfers. Clarke needed three attempts to escape the bunker:
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Clarke rebounded from the quadruple bogey to par his next two holes and birdie the ninth to get back to +1 for the championship.
