Having returned to his home in England after thinking he had missed the cut, Darren Clarke was forced to hire a private jet to tee off in time for the third round of the Spanish Open.
The Northern Irishman shot a level-par 72 Saturday after making his 8:45 a.m. (0635 GMT) tee time at the Real Golf Club de Seville.
Believing he had missed the cut, Clarke flew to his home in Surrey by scheduled airline. However, no sooner had he begun to relax with his two sons than Clarke received a series of phone calls telling him that his 69 Friday to be level-par 144 was good enough to play at the weekend.
Clarke attempted to catch a commercial flight from London's Gatwick airport, only to miss it after becoming caught in a traffic jam. A private jet for hire was located at nearby Oxford airport, and he was able to take off at 2 am on Saturday morning to Malaga. He then had a two-hour drive to Seville.
``I had just 53 minutes sleep before I had to get up and go to the course,'' Clarke said. ``But it would have been unprofessional of me not to make an attempt to get back, given all the hard work off the sponsors and officials to lay on such a good tournament this weekend.
``I have left tournaments before thinking I had missed the cut, but only ever got as far as an airport before being recalled.''
Clarke was not prepared to give the exact details of his costly mistake.
``It was cheap to fly back home on a scheduled plane and extortionate to get back here,'' he said. ``I felt pretty tired at times but finished birdie-par-birdie, which was good.''
