Golf:Justin Rose piled on the agony for Darren Clarke with a 6&4 drubbing at the Volvo World Match Play Championship in Spain
Open champion Clarke had also lost to Robert Rock earlier in the day — that at least went to the final green — and so made yet another early exit from a tournament.
The 43-year-old has yet to survive a halfway cut this season and has still to record his first top-10 finish since his memorable triumph at Sandwich last summer.
Rose, in contrast, has not gone beyond the 14th hole in either of his games — he crushed Rock 7&6 — and afterwards expressed empathy for Clarke’s plight.
He, after all, endured 21 successive missed cuts in the year that followed his fourth-place finish as a 17-year-old amateur in the 1998 Open.
Rose, whose next opponent Nicolas Colsaerts won a play-off against last year’s Masters champion Charl Schwartzel to reach the last 16, said: “We’ve all been through ebbs and flows. He was in great spirits considering and very complimentary to me. He’s got it in perspective I guess — it’s tough, but it’s not like he’s checked out. He still wants to be a great player.
“He obviously eluded to the fact that nothing has gone terribly right (on the course) since winning The Open, but the only thing to hopefully draw on is his family life (Clarke married again last month) and he’s really enjoying being back in Northern Ireland. You can see it still hurts, but he’s a good enough player that hopefully it will turn round.”
Rose went four up on the 574-yard eighth even though he hit only one shot there. Clarke pulled his drive into bushes, the ball was never found and he decided not to return to the tee.
