MURRELLS INLET — Roger Clemens appears to have a plan regarding his return to baseball, but he’s not revealing it just yet.

Clemens has a second start planned with the Sugar Land Skeeters of the independent Atlantic League on Sept. 7, nearly two weeks after his first professional pitching performance for the Texas team in nearly five years on Aug. 25. After that?

“We’ve got something fun planned, but we don’t know if it’s going to be able to happen or not, so we’ll wait and see next week if it all works out,” Clemens said Friday after completing the championship round of the Golf.com World Amateur Handicap Championship at the TPC of Myrtle Beach.

Asked to describe what “something fun” might be, Clemens said, “I’m not going to elaborate on that.”

Clemens also addressed rumors of a possible start or two with the Houston Astros. “I haven’t heard that,” he said. “I can’t control the speculation so I’m not too concerned with it.”

Scouts for the Astros and Kansas City Royals attended Clemens’ Aug. 25 start, and he represents the Astros through a personal services contract with the team and owner Jim Crane.

In his start last week against the Bridgeport Bluefish, the seven-time Cy Young Award winner allowed one hit, struck out two and didn’t walk a batter in 31/3 scoreless innings. His fastball was clocked at 88 mph and he mixed in curveballs and split-finger fastballs.

Clemens has said that appearance was essentially a favor to the first-year Skeeters and manager Gary Gaetti, who was the Astros hitting coach when Clemens pitched for the team from 2004-06. He’ll face the Long Island Ducks on Sept. 7.

“I want to hopefully get out there and get a couple or three innings in and everybody have a good time with it,” Clemens said.

Clemens said his right shoulder was still sore Friday, but he felt he came out of his first action since September 2007 feeling pretty good. “I’m still a little sore when I’m playing golf, but I’ll ice down and my body will respond for me,” Clemens said. “It’s a week from today so I’ve got some time to get home and train and do some core work and get ready to go.”

Clemens’ competitive focus was on golf this past week, and made a run Friday but came up short in the championship round of the World Am.

Playing with a 6.9 handicap elevated to a course handicap of 8 at the TPC, Clemens teed off on the 10th hole and was within a stroke of the lead at net 5-under par through 14 holes.

But on his 15th hole – the par-5 sixth – he hit his tee shot out of bounds and took a double bogey, then made net bogeys on the seventh and ninth holes.

Clemens tied for ninth in the nearly 3,100-player event with a 79 for a net 1-under 71. Robert Mieczkowski of New Jersey won the championship with a 76 for a net 6-under 65.

Clemens said he was never aware of his standing on the leaderboard. “I was just playing and playing hard,” he said. “It was just a great deal of fun. I think we all just ran out of gas. … I thought I was shooting a pretty good number.”

Clemens made four consecutive net birdies on holes 15-18 and made a birdie for a net eagle on the par-5 second hole to reach 5 under.

“Golf is just fun,” Clemens said. “I don’t practice enough at golf so it’s always challenging for me.”

Clemens, playing in his second World Am, qualified for the championship round by tying for first in his 42-player flight with rounds of 84 at Diamond Back Golf Club at Woodland Valley, 77 at the TPC of Myrtle Beach and 73 at the Hackler Course at Coastal Carolina for a 234 aggregate total and 210 net. The winners of 68 flights all qualified for the championship round.

“With the weather being as it was, with a lot of rain, I thought all the courses that allowed us to get out there and play and play lift, clean and place did a great job,” Clemens said. “To get back out here and get another round at the TPC was fantastic. The course was in great shape again for all the weather and rain that we had.”

Contact ALAN BLONDIN at 626-0284.