Young Australian Greg Chalmers and Eamonn Darcy had much in common in Durban yesterday when they both showed commendable spirit in overcoming adversity in the second round of the South African Open.

But while Chalmers dusted himself down and started over again after running up a 10, to battle back to third place and within three strokes of the new leader David Frost, Darcy's Durban race is run.

Despite mounting a battling rearguard action after his 82 on Thursday, Darcy will take no further part in a South African Open no longer dominated by Ernie Els.

Els had an enigmatic time of it in a `Durban Doctor' wind which blew off the adjacent coastline and lost his lead to fellow-countryman Frost, whose six-under-par 66 for 10-under-par put him two shots ahead of the first round leader.

Much earlier in the day, Darcy fell only four shots worse than the seemingly unreachable target of 64 for which he had bravely aimed. Remarkably he out-shot everybody but the new leader.

But the chances are that even if the Delgany man had somehow turned round his awful Thursday, he would still be taking no further part. Before going out 10 strokes over par yesterday, Darcy was told that his father Christy, who has suffered a stroke after a hip operation, had taken a turn for the worse and it seemed certain that the Druids Glen professional would have to return home.

"The golf is now incidental. My dad had another stroke and this time it was much more serious, so that's all I want to think about at the moment," said Darcy.

Darcy's accomplished back nine yesterday, amazingly left him with one last throw of the dice to stay in the tournament. The score he needed on the last hole, a reachable par-four of only 275 yards, was two. That would have given him a round of 65 and, on three-over-par, a place in the weekend if he were able to play.

However, after his drive settled in a molehill, Darcy ran up bogey and had to settle for a 68 and six-over-par.

He could have gained relief from the animal scrape but decided to get on with it instead of calling for a rules official. He explained: "I perhaps should have asked for a free-drop because the area should have been roped off, but I figured I needed to hole the shot to stay in the tournament anyway, and there wasn't much chance of that."

Chalmers could easily have lost his head after he scuffed pitches three times from close by the third green, his 12th hole. In fact, he twice played total `air-shots', but refused to let it get him down. His riposte was to follow up his quintuple-bogey with an eagle and a birdie to tag the leaders.

"My first reaction was to panic but I gave myself a pep-talk and got my head back together because it's not like a double-bogey which makes you angry. A 10 is beyond the point of upset or angry, it was just ridiculous, " said the 24-yearold left-hander.

After Frost had overhauled him, Els, too had to `Steady the Buffs' and produced two closing birdies to keep alive his hopes of a hattrick of home Open successes.

Former Masters champion Jose-Maria Olazabal eased into a one stroke lead at the halfway stage of the £450,000 Greg Norman International in Sydney.