Veteran BBC commentator Peter Alliss has said that the corporation should have tried harder to win the rights to the Open Championship and that attempts to give women equal rights in golf have “caused mayhem”.

Just 27% of Rory McIlroy’s fellow professionals think the world No.1 will complete the career grand slam by winning the Masters this week.

An end to the Open Championship being staged at clubs with a male-only membership policy is in sight after English golf club Royal St George’s voted to allow women members.

Darren Clarke still proudly lays claim to being the first player to have competed at Castle Stuart, the host for this week’s Scottish Open, who then went on the following week to win the British Open.

Darren Clarke’s Open Championship title defence was brought to a premature end last night after the Irishman failed to make the halfway cut at Royal Lytham & St Annes.

The last time Darren Clarke had walked up the 18th fairway in a British Open Championship it was on the way to collecting the Claret Jug.

Darren Clarke may no longer be in possession of the Claret Jug but his place in the champions’ locker room at Royal Lytham & St Annes this week will be a fitting place to plot his British Open title defence.

Rory McIlroy will head into this month’s British Open Championship with new-found confidence that he has the game to conquer windy links conditions.

Darren Clarke’s charge in the thunderstorm affected Shell Houston Open came to a screeching halt — no thanks to the sound of screeching brakes.

Open champion Darren Clarke today admitted he would put his personal opinion to one side and play at Gleneagles next year if he needed to qualify for the Ryder Cup.

IF THE opening moments of his pre-tournament press conference are anything to go by, Lee Westwood may be taking his plan of not trying too hard to finally land his first major, a little too far.

NOTHING will boost Darren Clarke’s confidence more tomorrow morning at the 93rd PGA Championship than teeing it up at Atlanta Athletic Club as a Major champion.

DARREN CLARKE last night stood up for Tiger Woods and gave the former world number one a ringing endorsement as a human being and not just a golfing machine with myriad personal problems to solve.

AND your leading Irishman after 18 holes of the Irish Open is.... Colm Moriarty.

DARREN CLARKE has told critics of his post-British Open victory celebrations to “get a life” and put his drinking into perspective.

THERE’S one more round of back-slapping on the agenda. One more party to survive.

IN advocating what will seem a somewhat heretical suggestion, I am in no way denigrating either the current venue, Killarney, or the many other outstanding courses that have staged our national Open over the years.

JOHN MULROONEY, who caddied for Darren Clarke at last weekend’s British Open, has joined the chorus of praise and admiration reverberating around the sporting world for the Dungannon man’s achievement, describing Sunday as “the most amazing day of my life”.

ON Sunday, Galway hurler Shane Kavanagh sat back in his armchair watching Darren Clarke secure a first Major at the ripe age of 42.

Champion Darren Clarke has re-iterated his belief that Royal Portrush would be able to host the Open.

HE was Andrew Chandler’s first client and in winning The British Open, Darren Clarke has delivered the third leg of what would be a remarkable “Chubby Slam” for the founder of International Sports Management.

DARREN CLARKE signed off his British Open championship victory press conference on Sunday night by trying to explain what his great appeal was to the fans who had roared him on to success at Royal St George’s.

DARREN CLARKE and an assortment of ducks may like the wind and rain that links courses attract but do not ever include Rory McIlroy among the list of aficionados.

PHIL MICKELSON exited Royal St George’s as he entered it this week— with a huge grin and the warm appreciation of a knowledgeable British Open crowd.

The Taoiseach has congratulated Northern Irish golfer Darren Clarke following his Open Championship victory today.

It did not take long for Royal St George’s to serve up a warning of what troubles lay in store for the remaining players in the Open Championship today.

DARREN CLARKE spent the build-up to this week’s British Open deflecting questions about his protegé Rory McIlroy.

NO MATTER how many times you have competed in events of the size and status of the British Open Championship, one has to be continually impressed by the scale of the infrastructure supporting the event and the attention to detail, not least in the media centre.

SPORTS psychologist Bob Rotella may have straightened Darren Clarke’s head out this week at Royal St George’s, but he is going to have his hands full with Graeme McDowell and Padraig Harrington for the next while following a couple of brain-mangling rounds at the British Open yesterday.

IT was as if they had turned the clocks back 140 years or so, to those days when Old Tom and Young Tom ruled the fairways of Prestwick in the annual British Open Championship.

DARREN CLARKE has been here before but it has been such a long and unlikely route back to the top of a British Open leaderboard that when he was cheered up the 18th at Royal St George’s yesterday there was an air of a long-lost son returning.

CONSIDERING he got the worst of the day’s weather, there was plenty for Rory McIlroy to be satisfied about from his opening round of 71 at Royal St George’s yesterday.

A 40-YEAR-OLD Dane and a 20-year-old amateur share the lead at the British Open heading into today’s second round of the oldest major in golf as Royal St George’s once again conformed to its quirky reputation.

IAN POULTER admitted he would have been disappointed had he not finished under par at Royal St George’s having played so well without creating many chances during his first round yesterday.

NOT everyone has been as enamoured with this stretch of Kent coastline as William Laidlaw Purves was when he first envisaged a golf links on the humps and hillocks just outside Sandwich in the 1880s.

RORY McILROY passed one difficult test with such ease three weeks ago that it would be all too easy to assume he can pass another one this weekend at Royal St George’s.

AS his immediate predecessor as US Open champion, Graeme McDowell knows exactly what Rory McIlroy is going through following his arrival at the British Open.

RORY MCILROY breezed into Royal St George’s yesterday afternoon confident he has got his preparations for tomorrow’s British Open first round spot on.

THE golfing world may be still buzzing about his US Open victory but Rory McIlroy has set his sights firmly on the future and the business of winning this week’s British Open.

SERGIO GARCIA is in a happier place than he was 12 months ago and hopes images of the late, great Seve Ballesteros emblazoned around Royal St George’s will provide additional inspiration for this week’s British Open.

WITH his US Open reign consigned to the record books, Graeme McDowell is enjoying his return to normality and quietly mounting a case for consideration at this week’s British Open.

HE MAY have been written off a few times in the last couple of seasons but Pádraig Harrington remains determined to prove he has the game to add to his haul of three major championships.

HE may have upgraded from a tiny apartment to a luxury home but for Ben Curtis the objectives at this week’s British Open are exactly the same as when he last played, and won, at Royal St George’s.

RORY McILROY still has plenty to prove before he can be placed alongside Tiger Woods and Jack Nicklaus, says Irish Ryder Cup hero Paul McGinley, who believes the new US Open champion is currently being “over-hyped”.