DARREN CLARKE'S disappointing season continued when he missed the cut for the fourth tournament in a row at the Spanish Open in Madrid yesterday.

And Ian Woosnam has still to make a penny this year after pulling out earlier in the day with cramp in both his legs. He sees a specialist in London on Monday.

Even in an event boasting just one of the world's top 50 . . . defending champion Niclas Fasth . . . Clarke failed to make it into the final 36 holes after rounds of 75 and 71.

At two over par he bowed out 10 strokes behind joint halfway leaders Stuart Little of England, Spaniard Carlos Rodiles and Frenchman Gregory Bourdy.

Graeme McDowell finished the second round on four under par, with Peter Lawrie on three under and Damien McGrane and Paul McGinley a shot further back.

Gary Murphy carded a 72 to finish on one under but David Higgins and Rory McIlroy missed out.

After losing almost eight hours to rain on Thursday and then another 100 minutes on Friday the tournament still had a lot of catching up to do with the third round not starting until late yesterday afternoon.

It had been underway less than 35 minutes when play was suspended again because of an approaching storm.

Clarke's chances had not been helped by a recurrence of the hamstring strain he suffered recently playing football with his son Conor.

The Ryder Cup star did improve from three over to level par over the opening 10 holes and that would have been good enough to survive, but then came bogeys on the 12th and 18th, where he found a bad lie in the rough by the green.

Clarke is already down to 69th in the world rankings and is now likely to fall even more.

Little, Rodiles and Bourdy . . . all eight under par . . . are chasing their first European Tour win. They have all come close to tasting victory in the past, but each of them has had to go back to the qualifying school in the last two years.

Bourdy was third in the South Airways Open at the end of 2005 . . . Retief Goosen and Ernie Els were first and second, so that was no disgrace . . . and after birdies at the 15th, 16th and 17th he was on course to lead on his own.

However, a bad drive led to a closing bogey and 69.

Little, who set the clubhouse target late on Friday night, was runner-up in Tenerife in 2005, but slumped to 150th on the Order of Merit last season, and having failed to come through the school, needed four withdrawals this week to earn a place in the tournament.

Last year's Ryder Cup captain Ian Woosnam, who quit the Masters in America earlier this month without hitting a shot in the event, withdrew yesterday after only four holes of his second round.

He was three over par at the time and probably needed to cover the remaining 14 holes in three under to survive the cut.

"I can't walk properly and you can't play if you can't walk, " said the 49-year-old former world number one, who also missed the halfway cut in Thailand, Singapore and China. I just can't get rid of it . . . it's been a long time now. Just walking to the practice ground I'm knackered and after hitting 20 balls I am out of breath. It's like cramp and I keep going into spasm. I feel like I've got to go flat out just to swing and I'm not going to play again until I feel better."

Woosnam is due to link up again with Tom Lehman, captain of the American team in Ireland last September, at next week's Italian Open in Milan, but that now seems unlikely.

"I had these two weeks, then a week off, then five tournaments in a row, but we'll see what the specialist in London says. I wake up one day and can swing fine, but then the next I just don't have the movement."

Woosnam was diagnosed in 1987 with ankylosing spondylitis, a progressive rheumatic disease mainly of the spine that can also affect other joints, tendons and ligaments and other areas such as the eyes and heart.

He has taken anti-inflammatories ever since, but last year started a new treatment of weekly injections.