Ireland's challengers failed to repair Thursday's damage while making early departures from their first USPGA Championship at Winged Foot yesterday. But while Darren Clarke slipped badly with a 79 for 153, Padraig Harrington seemed to have got his game back into productive shape when shooting a creditable 71 for 148.

It ended with two birdies, the product of eight-foot and 25-foot putts at the 17th and 18th. "I feel I would need to be better prepared in future, but I don't know how I can do that and maintain my European Tour schedule," he said afterwards. "Perhaps I could acclimatise better by arriving here a few days earlier."

Then Harrington, currently 11th in the table with 288,870 points, admitted he had set himself a specific Ryder Cup target. "In the three weeks after the British Open, I planned to win £90,000," he said. "But I've got only less than half that (actually £30,000) which means that I have to earn at least £45,000 in the remaining two events."

He concluded: "I don't know if I could have caught the guys in front of me, but I wanted to make it difficult for those behind. Clearly, that hasn't happened." He competes next week in the Smurfit European Open while Clarke will remain in the US for the World Series in Akron, Ohio.

The experience of the World Series at Firestone certainly won't be misplaced on a player who has now made only one cut from four "majors" in the US. That came in the US Open at Congressional last June, when he was tied 43rd. Previously, he missed the cut in the US Open at Oakmont in 1994 and at Oakland Hills in 1996.