Clear eyes, full hearts, can’t lose

I’VE come to realise there’s little enough in sport that can’t be explained by that mantra of the Dillon Panthers, the fictional Texas high school football team of marvellous NBC show Friday Night Lights.

Take Rory McIlroy’s tepid showing at Sandwich last weekend. “What I’m playing for now is a place in history, not for money,” said Rory on BBC documentary Major Breakthrough after his US Open win. Uh-oh! Nothing clouds the eyes more than taking them off the dollar.

Then, when the red-tops filled this week with affairs of Rory’s heart, you knew Royal St George’s had been a bridge too far. Couldn’t win.

The heart of the man who did win last weekend has, of course, suffered terribly over the years. And everyone was thrilled for Darren Clarke when he finally made his own major breakthrough.

Bizarrely, however, the story this week became not Clarke’s victory but how clear his eyes were the following morning. Story after story: “Bleary-eyed champ.” “Parties all night.” “Fills the jug.” Clarke revelled in it: “I think the fans like me because I have a drink, I smoke a cigar, I do the things you’re not supposed to do.”

And who would begrudge a man his celebration at a career’s peak? But quite why journalists — many of whom can get sniffy enough when sporting bodies take a few quid from a drinks sponsor — became so infatuated with it is another matter.

You also recalled the closing minutes of Major Breakthrough, when McIlroy rose at 5am after Congressional to fulfil a sponsor’s engagement. The eyes were clear enough. Maybe, with different habits, Clarke’s breakthrough could have come 20 years earlier.