Forced to return to action at 8.30am because of Thursday’s seven-hour rain delay, Campbell completed a second-round 65 to add to his opening 62 for a 17-under-par halfway total which equalled the European tour record.

Clarke, meanwhile, amazingly played the last six holes in six under par and survived the halfway cut with nothing to spare on one over. He had been six over before coming home in 29.

‘‘I even brought my luggage to the course so that I could go straight to the airport,’’ said the Ulsterman, who had three successive birdies from the 13th, eagled the long 16th and then birdied the 17th as well.

‘‘Now I’ve got to cancel the flight and check back into the hotel.’’

Caddie Billy Foster joked: ‘‘That’s ruined my weekend.’’

His wife gave birth to a baby boy only three weeks ago and he thought he would be back with them this afternoon.

Even world number one Tiger Woods enjoyed watching playing partner Clarke - ‘‘my good buddy’’ - stage his remarkable fightback and some of it rubbed off on the American as he also eagled the 16th.

Woods’s 68 put him on seven under and in joint sixth place, but looking at a leaderboard showing him 10 adrift he said: ‘‘I’ll just go out this afternoon, post a number and see where it puts me. Who knows?

‘‘Hopefully I can play well. I’ve done it only in spurts so far, but that was a lot of fun watching Darren play like he did. How about that?’’

With play having gone to beyond 9pm last night, it was midnight before Woods got to bed and he said he was up before five o’clock to prepare for the resumption.

Campbell had the same short night, of course, but it did not affect him in the least.

‘‘I had a premonition on Wednesday that Tiger and I would be in the 20s under par - although I didn’t know who would win,’’ he said.

So far he is on course, but Woods needs to move up a gear.