Aug 23, 2008 - 1:40 PM
0 shoutsBy Mark Garrod PA SportsTicker Contributing Writer
ZANDVOORT, Netherlands (Ticker) -- A week after going back to Northern Ireland to mark his 40th birthday, Darren Clarke might have more reasons to celebrate on Sunday and next weekend.
Clarke takes a three-stroke lead over Swede Henrik Stenson into Sunday's final round of the KLM Open in Holland, and his performance could easily earn him a Ryder Cup call-up from Nick Faldo next Sunday - perhaps at the expense of Colin Montgomerie.
But while he smiled after a joint best-of-the-day 66 lifted him to 12-under-par, Justin Rose was furious with himself after falling into the pack.
Eighth in the points race, Rose flew from America to try to clinch a Ryder Cup debut and hoped he might be able to head straight back across the Atlantic for the second leg of the FedEx Cup playoffs.
Now, however, he might have to stay for the final qualifying event, the Johnnie Walker Championship at Gleneagles, and after three-putting from inside 15 feet on Kennemer's last green his anger boiled over.
"That was pathetic - just pathetic. A load of old rubbish," said the world number 12, with a few expletives thrown in for good measure.
A 1-over-par round of 71 left Rose down in 24th place at 3-under and the two players immediately below him on the Ryder Cup points table, Oliver Wilson and Soren Hansen, are 5-under and 6-under.
Clarke had moved into a share of the halfway lead with a second round of 64 and more birdies on the fourth, sixth and seventh holes Saturday swept him clear.
The inspiration of Europe's 2006 victory - Clarke claimed three wins out of three just six weeks after his wife Heather died of breast cancer - did bogey the difficult eighth and saw the gap closed from three to one, but he responded by picking up more strokes on the 12th and 13th.
Stenson, already certain of his cup place after finishing third in The Open and fourth at the US PGA, had a 68, while England's John Bickerton came home in 29 for a 66 which put him third.
Scotland Marc Warren and New Zealander Michael Campbell were a further stroke back and the leaderboard no longer features the two men with whom Clarke shared the overnight lead.
Sweden's Alex Noren had double bogeys on the fourth and fifth, while England's Robert Rock had an even worse day. He also took six on the fifth, followed it with a quintuple-bogey nine and fell outside the top 50.
Rose will earn his first Ryder Cup cap unless three players go past him in the last two weeks and while Wilson and Hansen could easily do that Sunday - they lie 12th and sixth in the tournament - German Martin Kaymer in 11th spot is down on 2-over after a 74 which contained three double bogeys and 13th-placed Ross Fisher, this week's defending champion, is 1-under.
It has helped Rose's cause too that his great friend Ian Poulter missed the cut in America at The Barclays on Friday.
