Clarke searching for inspiration

DARREN CLARKE wasn’t back to his old moody ways at Shinnecock Hills yesterday but he wasn’t far off it.

Having completed his 18 hole practice round, Clarke raced off the final green and made his way to the practice area where Scotty Cameron, designer of the famous range of putters, was waiting. Cameron and other manufacturers showed him a variety of putters, around 20 of which he experimented with without ever looking like shouting “Eureka, I have found it.”

So, when it came to discussing matters with waiting journalists, he wasn’t having any. “Not now lads”, he said quietly but firmly. “Perhaps later.” Watching all of this was his manager, Chubby Chandler, who expressed a dislike of the course, claiming it had too many blind holes, which prompted the suspicion that this represented Darren’s view as well.

Meanwhile, Padraig Harrington was a lot happier with his golf swing than he had been 24 hours earlier. In spite of tying for the Buick Classic at the weekend, he claimed he had swung the club “appallingly” throughout the tournament. It now seems that a Trans Atlantic telephone conversation with his Scottish coach Bob Torrance has ironed matters out. He wasn’t rotating through the ball as he should have been, an old fault that he has been trying to rectify for some years.

“Yeah, it’s a whole lot better now even though I don’t claim that it’s back to where I want it to be just yet“, said Harrington who has now played 27 holes over the Shinnecock Hills lay-out and is absolutely charmed at what he has found. Like everybody else, he is bowled over by the fantastic view of the entire course from the clubhouse and 18th and 9th holes area. As for being the nearest the Americans can come up with to a links, he agrees that Shinnecock is pretty close although only similar to courses on our side of the Atlantic like Lahinch in Ireland, Formby on the Lancashire coast and possibly Royal Troon, venue for this year’s Open Championship.

“It’s not as rugged as links courses in Ireland but I like the look of it“, he glowed. “It’s set up beautifully off the tee. There are a lot of blind shots and so in practice we are trying to find the lines off the tee. There will be mayhem if the winds change. It’s not really like an Irish links because I don’t know any links at home that has trees on it. I would think of Lahinch as regards the way the ball runs off the greens and Lahinch would also have most similarity of shot.

“As for my swing, I’ve got it from a hook to a cut, I’ve changed it the other way and hoping it will now come out somewhere in the middle.”