Ireland’s top golfers weren’t born to swing

YOU probably didn’t know it had a name, but I’m sure you’ve come across the Cupertino Effect.

After one well-known US sprinter won a 100m heat in 2008, the Associated Press ran a piece on the race which was filed to newspapers, magazines and websites across the world.

One conservative American publication’s automated search-and-replace function saw them print the story with this altered headline: “Homosexual eases into 100m final at Olympic trials.”

Confused? Me too.

Let’s read on, the intro starts...

“Tyson Homosexual easily won his Olympics trial for the 100m in Florida today...”

Tyson Gay went on to make the final in Beijing of course and is the record holding sprinter in the States. Another US newspaper — in Boston I think — was caught out in similar way, on the other side of the political spectrum, when they ran an article in the 1990s explaining that a certain tax hike or budget reform would put Massachusetts ‘back in the African American’.

I’m sure the tax-payers of New England would prefer the state to be back in the black. But whatever works.

It’s happened here too dare I say. One Irish publication ran a short story, I recall, on a midweek Arsenal game that featured one Cesc Fibre Glass in midfield. There but for the grace of God, etc.

The phenomenon earned its name thanks to one mistake that grew like a weed in a small crack in our use of the English language.

Computers’ early-version word processors would automatically replace the word ‘cooperation’ (spelt without the crucial hyphen) with Cupertino.

Cupertino is a small coastal town in California. I hope to get there some day to change the sign on the main road to read ‘Welcome to Cooperation’.

If you — and I don’t know why you would — trawl back through official documents from the UN, the EU, dare I say the Dáil, you’ll find reference to that little spot, just west of San Jose.

Examples in official documents include: “The Cupertino with our Italian comrades proved to be very fruitful,” in a NATO memo.

One would have been forgiven for thinking the world’s media had been the victim of one mass spellcheck error on Monday morning.

“C-L-A-R-K-E? That’s not how you spell Mickelson!”

I don’t think anyone saw that one coming, even Clarke if he’s honest. But maybe we should have. There must be some reason for Ireland’s — and specifically Northern Ireland’s — recent run of major wins.

Harrington bookended a USPGA with a pair of Claret Jugs, G-Mac landed his backside onto Leno’s chair thanks to a US Open victory and his young tennis-starlet-bothering pal Rory McIlroy reprised the trick one year later.

Clarke, however, is the outlier that reveals a pattern.

Is there something in the Mourne mountain air?

Does the water north of the border contain something that aids a full swing?

Does Paisley have something to do with it?

Not quite. Those who have read Mathew Syed’s book Bounce may surmise it has got more to do with talent.

Syed is a columnist with the Times of London these days but more interestingly to us he was a three-time Commonwealth table tennis champion.

In his book he challenges the idea that top sportsmen — as well as experts in other fields really — enjoy God-given gifts that the rest of us lack.

Put it this way; Joe Canning wasn’t born with the ability to cut a sideline. Ronan O’Gara wasn’t kicking penalties before someone showed him how; these skills were developed as a result of hard work and practice.

The path to the top, Syed argues, is a combination of opportunity — being in the right place at the right time — and hard work.

That’s certainly true in Clarke’s case, right? Years spent turning his face into howling winds north of the Giant’s Causeway and learning his golf were rewarded when he strode to the first tee box at Sandwich amongst howling winds with a smile on his face.

BBC cameras showed him on the practice range beforehand in short sleeves. Some of the Americans looked like they were dressed for a descent of K2.

Syed uses his own experience to demonstrate the importance of opportunity’s knock: his parents decided out of nowhere to buy a tournament-spec table for the writer and his brother; both came to love the sport and spurred each other on.

The head sports coach at their school was a table tennis fanatic. The club they formed dominated the schools game in Britain and kids from his neighbourhood made up the spine of the Olympics team years later.

Clarke had some of the best links courses in the world at his feet and — thanks to the Golfing Union of Ireland’s often-overlooked super work — the best of help. As for a brother with a paddle spurring him on at the other end of the garage? Read: Harrington, McIlroy, McDowell.

* [e-mail]; Twitter: @adrianrussell