Clarke downcast, Harrington upbeat

YOU would have thought they were playing different courses and different tournaments to observe the contrasting demeanours between Darren Clarke and Pádraig Harrington after both struggled around in 75 shots at Royal St George’s yesterday.

Whereas Clarke was down in the dumps, Harrington was full of smiles and quips and even went so far as to declare "it was my most enjoyable round of the year so far".

As it transpired, four over might not be all that bad given the fact that nobody opened a huge gap at the top of the leaderboard, but clearly both men have a lot to do to entertain a reasonable hope of being in the shake-up come Sunday.

Clarke went ahead with a birdie at the long fourth and picked up further strokes at the seventh and 12th but also conceded shots to the course at the sixth, eighth, 10th, 11th, 14th, 17th and 18th. Harrington double bogeyed the eighth and also dropped shots at the first, sixth, 11th and 12th before closing out with six straight pars.

If their respective moods tell the story accurately, it is the big Dungannon golfer who has most work to do. If he wasn't quite as depressed as he was in the immediate aftermath of the US Open, it wasn't a whole lot better.

"I am absolutely disgusted with the way I played," he confessed. "I was terrible. I hardly hit a proper shot all day and I have no idea why. I just played so badly and there's nothing more to say."

So the impression one gained from watching a fraught practice session with his coach Butch Harmon on Wednesday was confirmed.

It is difficult to understand how a golfer of Clarke's talent could finish fifth in the European Open, second in the Scottish Open in the immediate lead up to the Open and then play so poorly on the biggest day of all. A cynical friend suggested Clarke had been suffering all week from PMS Pre Major Stress and he might well have a point!

Either Harrington is an exceptionally good actor or he has learned there is more to life than winning or contending in golf tournaments in quite masterly fashion. He had made no secret during the preamble to the Open that his game wasn't all he hoped it might be and doubtless that helped him to accept the situation with commendable equanimity.

"The funny thing is I putted really well," he said. "I could have had a decent score, level par or something like that. I feel I deserve to be three or four strokes better but I probably wasn't playing well enough to ensure that."

Four over is not good but it need not be disastrous provided you have the game to rectify the situation. That's Harrington's rationale on where he now stands.

"If I was in the form of my life, I would think I could come back from this. But I'm playing average and three average days won't make me come back. Only slightly under par is going to win in these conditions, so four over wouldn't be disastrous if I was playing great. But the conditions were difficult.

"On fourteen, I hit this superb low six iron for my third shot, drawn into the flag, and I'm thinking this is going to skip up there nicely. But I was a full 50 yards short of the flag.

"I'm not complaining. It's perfect links conditions. On top of that, the pin positions are fabulous. There was hardly a pin besides the par fives that I felt I could go at to make a birdie. The wind is causing havoc to get at them. I haven't experienced that in a long time.

"I'm not at the stage where I can predict when I'm going to play well. That's a totally different level of golf, when you can demand your game to be there when you need it to be there. I hope it's getting there and I'm working to get it there, and if it happens, that's good. I just have to accept that so far this hasn't been one of those weeks."

And it was then that he came out with the remark that really took one by surprise.

"I actually had the most enjoyable round of golf of my year today. I did a bit of work with Bob Rotella, I had good company on the golf course with Kenny Perry and Stuart Appleby, we had good fun.

I've been quite miserable on the course all year and it's been a good while since I was smiling on the golf course. I've been trying too hard.

"This was a better day. I was thinking out there, I should be playing more links golf when I'm off. What we play isn't real golf.

"It's such a different experience, this is the real thing, although I suppose if we had to play for a living on this kind of course every week, it would send a lot of guys to the nut house."