Pressure on Darren to deliver
He has a tee time of 7.36am along with Davis Love 111 and Shingo Katayama, and before noon we will know whether he is on course to mount a meaningful challenge for his first major championship.
The 34-year-old from Dungannon is widely regarded as being ideally equipped to win this event more than any other of the big four, but in fact he has been in contention on remarkably few occasions since he made his first appearance at Royal Birkdale back in 1991.
There were, however, two notable exceptions 1987 when he tied for second, and 2001 when he shared third spot.
Looking back, he accepts 1987 came a little too early in his maturing process, although who knows what might have happened had he not famously shanked his tee shot out of bounds and on to the beach at the second hole in the final round when only one out of the lead?
"I've had a lot more experience since then and I would like to think that experience will stand me in good stead this week," he said.
More recently, he chased David Duval all the way to the 71st at Royal Lytham in 2001 before catching a bunker with his tee shot at the 17th and ran up a six that knocked him out of contention. He had one other top 10 finish, seventh at St Andrews in the Millennium Open, but he also missed the cut on a couple of occasions and has had several poor finishes.
So, it's difficult to predict what lies in store this week for a slightly enigmatic character who had his sports psychologist Dr Bob Rotella at his side throughout yesterday's practice round with Love, David Duval and Fred Couples.
On completing the 18 holes, he marched directly to the practice range for a session with his coach Butch Harmon. He later cut short an interviewer from the American Golf Channel who wanted to discuss his relationship with George Smallwood, a veteran St George's caddy whom he had employed on a visit here a couple of weeks ago and who again walked the course with Clarke and his regular caddy JP Fitzgerald on Tuesday.
Clarke has been using Smallwood's local knowledge but for some strange reason, refused to discuss the subject at all.
Indeed, what he was prepared to discuss wasn't very illuminating and it remains to be seen if his reluctance is linked to serious flaws in his game. 'Difficult' is a word he used time and again to describe the golf course, as he pointed to the bouncy fairways and the slopes on the greens.
Bearing in mind that he won championships in his amateur days on such renowned links as Lahinch, Baltray and Portrush, you might have expected him to enthuse about his liking for golf by the sea. But he wasn't in the mood.
"It should suit me," is all he would allow. "I haven't hit the ball the way I would like in any tournament so far this year. Some people might think this is my best chance of a major but I would like to be playing better."
Asked what was frustrating him most, he retorted: "If I knew that, I'd be playing better, wouldn't I?"
He went on to say his "putting is okay, that the greens are slowish but it's tough to read them because there are a lot of subtle borrows."
He sang a familiar song when he noted: "The fairways are so scaled that you can crush every shot up the middle and end up in the rough all the time. It's not easy to enjoy a course if your good shots don't end up the way you expect."
Clarke picked out the eighth, 17th and 18th as three holes that could play a vital part in the outcome of the championship. The eighth is a 455 yarder which, he said, "was particularly difficult in yesterday's breeze, the 17th has no fairway, two balls could land a foot apart, one could go one way and one go the other way and the thing about 18th is the rough on the left isn't as bad as when I came here recently."
As he departed, you sensed he would be all the better for improving his mindset well before today's early morning date with the starter.
Clarke has often been accused of being too hard on himself and this appeared to be one such occasion.
