Golf can be a vicious beast. When you're mauled, you lick your wounds and try to survive. In the general scheme of things, the 15th hole at Augusta National - a 530-yard par five called Firethorn - is a pussycat rather than a lion; yet, the irony wasn't lost on Padraig Harrington or Darren Clarke that, of all the holes, it should be the one to inflict most misery as they concluded their third rounds yesterday.

Statistically, the 15th hole was ranked the second easiest of all in the 2006 US Masters, with a stroke average in the third round of 4.765, with only the par five second playing easier.

But for Harrington, the 15th spelt the effective death knell to his title challenge, while, for Clarke, it provided a blip that didn't ultimately halt his quest for a green jacket, but did prevent him from leading the tournament at the 54-hole stage.

In the third round, the field recorded 22 birdies on the 15th, 17 pars, six bogeys, one double-bogey and one triple-bogey. Guess who had the double and the triple?

Harrington took a double-bogey seven, and Clarke an eight.

In Harrington's case, it came just after he had also suffered a double-bogey seven on the 13th, a hole which Clarke eagled to leap into a strong position to contend.

On the 13th, Harrington's three-wood tee-shot clipped the trees down the left of the fairway and plopped into Rae's Creek.

Yet it was the 15th - a hole that most of the field used to find some solace - that proved to be most penal for the two Irishmen.

Harrington was first to play. After a long and straight drive, he was left with an approach shot from the middle of the fairway. He had 225 yards to the pin, with the wind coming off the right. All Harrington saw was the flag, and the pose he took after executing the shot was that of a man eyeing it down.

"I hit a perfect shot, hit it great. I couldn't have hit it any better," he was to remark later of the four-iron.

Unfortunately, the ball never reached the green, hitting the top of the bank and rolling back into the water. "It never looked like going in the water, and that was the difference between a four and a seven. The ball just turned back into me (in the wind)," he said.

Harrington's double-bogey marked a run of 7-4-7 in three holes in his third round yesterday morning that took him from being a contender to a forlorn chaser.

Clarke's misdemeanour on the 15th came when he had streaked into contention after birdieing the 12th and eagling the 13th, putting him to four-under at the time. Clarke pushed his tee-shot into the first cut of rough, but felt that the lie was sufficiently good to carry the water. "I felt I could get a five-wood at it," he said, although he wasn't aiming at the green. His intention was to find the greenside bunker.

Instead, his approach plunged into the water. With the option of taking a penalty drop at point of entry or going to the drop zone, Clarke decided to take a drop where it first crossed the water hazard.

"I wished I hadn't," said Clarke, who managed to drop the ball into a hole. He caught it heavy, and the ball finished in the water. In the end, he had to hole an eight-footer for his eight.But he responded with a 35-footer for birdie at the 16th to keep his tournament challenge alive.

The 15th may be one of the easier holes on Augusta National, but it does have history. In 1986, Seve Ballesteros put his four-iron approach into the water in the final round, opening the door for Jack Nicklaus to go on to win. And Chip Beck never lived down his decision to lay-up there in 1993, on the way to losing out to Bernhard Langer.

Others to incur misery there down the years were Jumbo Ozaki, who ran up an 11 in 1987, a score equalled by Ben Crenshaw in 1997 and Ignacio Garrido in 1998.

Ironically, Harrington had this to say of the 15th on the eve of last year's tournament: "It's amazing, I can remember all the bad shots everybody else has hit here. That's one thing about Augusta, you carry the baggage of all the other players out there. Who can forget Seve's (Ballesteros) four-iron in the water on 15 (in 1986), standing there with a four-iron on Sunday off the downslope? What's the first thought that's going to come into your mind?"

Now, he knows how it feels.