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McDowell in, but rest fall

US Open Final Qualifying: Darren Clarke and Paul McGinley failed to make it through US Open qualifying at Walton Heath in Surrey…

Tue Jun 05 2007 - 01:00

US Open Final Qualifying:Darren Clarke and Paul McGinley failed to make it through US Open qualifying at Walton Heath in Surrey yesterday.

But Graeme McDowell shot rounds of 69, 68 to claim one of the coveted places at Oakmont next week.

Clarke, who has not made a cut since early February, made a sad admission afterwards.

"The current state of my game is not good for the US Open anyway, so it is maybe not such a bad thing," said the Ulsterman after rounds of 75 and 72.

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McGinley's two 71s were not sufficient either, and, having seen his world ranking slip to 138th, the Dubliner commented: "I'm not scaling the heights. I never got hot at any stage."

Fifty-two players teed off for nine spots at Oakmont, but Clarke, himself now down to 94th in the world from 35th at the start of the year, was tied for 44th after his opening round and that left him far too much to do.

Jean Van de Velde and Miguel Angel Jimenez, Ryder Cup team-mates in 1999, were unsuccessful as well.

Joint winners on eight under were Liverpool's Nick Dougherty, Swede Peter Hanson and South African Darren Fichardt.

Along with McDowell, Australian Marcus Fraser and Argentina's Miguel Rodriguez finished one behind, Birmingham's Sam Walker was sixth and the other two qualifiers were Dane Soren Kjeldsen and Frenchman Christian Cevaer.

This was the first time Clarke had had to play a qualifying event for a major since the 1995 British Open. He made it through at Ladybank on that occasion and went on to finish 30th at St Andrews.

This season, in addition to pulling out of three events because of a hamstring strain suffered playing football with his sons, Tyrone and Conor, he has missed five successive cuts.

"I just struggled again - 35 putts both rounds," he added. "The co-ordination is not there. It's not clicking at all.

"I don't have control of my ball flight and because I can't control the distance I'm not hitting it close and I'm taking three putts all over the place.

"I'm working away as much as I can at home, but it's not happening for me at the moment.

A double bogey at the second hole of his second round was the killer blow for McGinley, who admitted: "I was on the back foot after that. I had a lot of chances, but I couldn't take them. It's not to be - I'm not going to be there."