Perfect match for Clarke

THEY act like any newly-engaged couple – talking, laughing, full of life and looking forward to spending a long time together.

Darren Clarke and Alison Campbell have yet to set a date for their marriage, so for the time being the pair will continue to get to know each other a little better.

Clarke has been a leading golfer for more than a decade and is used to competing on the world stage, while Campbell is a former ‘Miss Northern Ireland’ who now runs a successful model agency in Belfast.

It was fellow Ulster golfer and current US Open champion Graeme McDowell who can take credit for bringing the pair together. McDowell used to be friendly with one of Campbell’s models and, knowing Campbell had no boyfriend, he suggested Clarke ‘text’ her and ask out for a date. However, before their meeting materialised Clarke confessed he was curious about Campbell.

“I was competing in Hong Kong late last year, and had ended 11th in the tournament to just miss out of gaining a place in the Dubai World Championship by one place in finishing 61st on the Race to Dubai,” said Clarke.

“We were all staying at the same hotel in Hong Kong and there was Lee (Westwood), Rory (McIlroy), G-Mac(McDowell) and a few of the caddies sitting there, and they were all getting the late night flight to Dubai.

“I was flying back to London, having missed out on Dubai, but then G-Mac was very friendly with one of Alison’s model back home and they had conspired between the two of them to give me Alison’s phone number and G-Mac’s saying: ‘Now, give this girl a call as she’s really nice, and you two would get on together well’.

“I didn’t know anything about her. Didn’t know who she was so I sent her a text, and it’s always easier to send a text as you don’t have to talk, and she flew over to London the following Friday.

“I simply asked her if she would like to come to dinner but before then, and went I got back home from Hong Kong on the Tuesday, I got onto theinternet to look for pictures of her to see what she looked like. But then I figured also if she was an ex-Miss Northern Ireland, and a model herself, that she would be a very nice lady, which she is.

“I liked the look of her straight away and suffice to say the dinner went very well. Though she nearly collapsed when she saw me.

“So everything is now good. I’ve settled back into Portrush, I’ve got a new home, the boys are happy, and I’ve got a wonderful fiancée.”

In contrast, Campbell obviously knew all about Darren Clarke, a golfer who’s won two $1m first prize cheques in capturing a pair of World Championship events along with 17 other events around to world.

His European Tour winnings alone amount to more than €17m while Clarke has played in three of five victorious European Ryder Cup winning sides.

Clarke ‘popped’ the question late in December and just before Campbell’s staff Christmas Party.

Asked if he got down on one knee, Clarke laughed: “There’s no way I am letting you have any information about that. But I can say I was the perfect gentleman. She said ‘yes’ but we have not set a date for thewedding. It’s just that our schedules are a bit chaotic, so that’s why we have not locked in a date.”

There would have been some people surprised to learn of Clarke’s engagement, especially after the tragedy of losing his first wife, Heather, in 2006 to breast cancer.

Equally, there were many surprised when Australian golfer Stuart Appleby remarried not to long after the death of his wife, Renay, at London’s Waterloo Railway Station, and the day after the 1998 British Open as the couple were set to board Eurostar for a romantic holiday in Paris.

But while Clarke will always cherish fond memories of his marriage to Heather, life moves on and there’s no reason why a larger-than-life figure like Clarke should stay single. If anything, Heather would have wanted him to marry again.

Besides, in observing Campbell at a recent function at the Emirates Palace, and during the course of the Abu Dhabi HSBC Championship, she seems to get on remarkably well with Clarke’s two sons, Tyrone and Conor, who have spent years in boarding school and no doubt missing a motherly figure in their lives.

“Alison gets on very well with Tyrone and Conor, and while I’ve been through a lot, they’re been through more. I’m unbelievably proud of how the two of them have turned out thus far, and how they behave and conduct themselves,” said Clarke.

“They’ve been through an awful lot and they’ve done fantastic. But then I was unhappy for a very long time because of the circumstances a few years back and I am sure that if you ask anybody who has been through a similar sort of experience, they would tell you the same.

“But that’s what it was, and it had to be dealt with, and we dealt with it as best we could. It was a difficult time for me being out here on the Tour and trying to compete nomatter how much of a brave face I put on.

“So things have moved on. The boys are happy, and I am happy. Of course, the boys will forever miss and remember their mum, but it’s great to see the boys happy.

“And when it comes to my golf, ‘yes’ I want to continue winning golf tournaments and ‘yes’ I would one day still love to win a major championship but if it came to a choice between winning a major or my kids, I would take my kids every day. That’s the way it is.”

So does Campbell know what she’s getting herself into? A golfer desperate to end a more than two-year winless drought, a person who enjoys the odd pint of Guinness or two, along with the occasional cigar plus a few bets on the races.

“Alison runs one of the most successful modelling agencies in Belfast, she’s travelled the world with the Miss World contest, she’s done all sorts of stuff, so she’s used to dealing with people all the time,” said Clarke smiling uncontrollably.

“So she’s well able to handle me. Even my stress! She’d let me stew for a while and just ignores me. But she’s a great woman, a really, really great woman, and let me say she’s worldly-wise.”

Clarke is back in action at this week’s Commercial Bank Qatar Masters in Doha and looking to make amends for last Sunday’s disappointment after being tied for the lead early on the last day in Bahrain.