Darren Clarke's was left fuming as a hamstring injury forced him to withdraw from the Wachovia Championship last night.

The Ryder Cup hero, 38, tweaked the knock he picked up playing football with his son Conor two weeks ago during his opening 76.

Badly in need of world ranking points to avoid having to qualify for next month's US Open, the world No 75 pulled out before the second round as a precaution.

He groaned: "I am really disappointed. I have never had to pull out of a tournament with an injury before.

"It is not something that I wanted to do but I couldn't make a full swing and thought it was better not to aggravate it any more than necessary."

Clarke would have needed a sub-70 second round to avoid missing his fifth cut on the trot.

Now his goal is to get treatment on his injury so he can play three events on the trot over the next three weeks.

The Irish star is scheduled to tee it up in The Players Championship at Sawgrass next week before heading to Adare for the Irish Open and Wentworth for BMW PGA Championship.

He remained at Quail Hollow to work on his short game.