Clarke bids to chalk up Ryder points

DARREN CLARKE is determined to cement his place in the Ryder Cup starting with this week’s Players Championship.

Clarke is making his ninth straight TPC Sawgrass appearance and looking also to better a best result of sixth in 2003 behind American Davis Love.

The Dungannon golfer will start the $8m event in the best of form, having finished third in last week’s Bay Hill Invitational courtesy of a blistering third round 63.

“It was a good result last week. I played great on Saturday to shoot 63 with plenty of putts. I left a lot of putts out there in that 63 but my ball-striking was really good,” he said.

“Sunday was a bit average again and I couldn’t quite get the finish in there, but if I had not missed that putt on 17 from four feet, I would have been only one shot behind. Still, third was a decent finish.”

Clarke is ninth on the European Ryder Cup World Points list and well down in 27th spot on the secondary European Points list.

He qualified for Oakland Hills in 2004 off the World Points list and it will this list Clarke will again seek to secure a fifth straight Ryder Cup cap.

“All the Europeans competing over here are playing alright at the moment and that goes well for the Ryder Cup,” said Clarke.

“But there is a few of us still to qualify. At the moment neither Lee (Westwood), Pádraig (Harrington) or myself are qualified as yet. So we all want to get in there as quick as we can, and the sooner we start wracking up points the better.”

But whilst Clarke will look to draw on his experience of 26 rounds of the Pete Dye designed course, Paul McGinley knows he faces a tough assignment in just making it through to the weekend.

In his only Players appearance in 2002, McGinley failed to break 70, shooting scores of 75 and 72.

“It is a golf course you really need to know because it requires a huge amount of course knowledge,” said McGinley.

“Coming back four years after playing it the first time, I realise how much course knowledge is actually needed. !

“I am certainly at a disadvantage compared to the rest of the field because I don’t know it. Some of the guys here this week have been playing here for 10 - 15 years.

“There is a huge big learning curve so I am going to have to cram before the exam.”

And whilst McGinley fights to get to grips with the course, the Irishman has slammed suggestions the Players Championship could become a fifth major.

The tournament has long been dubbed golf’s unofficial fifth major but talk of that becoming official is rife this week particularly with the event moving to May next year in a revamped US Tour schedule.

Switching the Players Championship to May and giving it ‘Major’ status would mean major titles in April, May, June, July and August.

“It’s wrong if they want to call it the fifth major,” said McGinley.

“For a start they don’t let Ryder Cup players play as Monty and I were the only ones who didn’t play last year.

“So there is no way it can become golf’s fifth major, not until they change the qualification process. Just look at the other majors as they are quite generous in terms of qualification.

“It is going to be hard to call the Players Championship a major when it is basically for the American players and if they want to call a world event or a major or whatever in the future, they have got to be a bit more generous with the qualification process for this tournament.”

Pádraig Harrington, nursing a head cold, was supportive of his long time World Cup colleague saying: “Moving the event to May is maybe the reason it can become a fifth major, and quite possibly that could happen over time.

“But I don’t think there should be more than four.”