Clarke loving life at the top

DARREN CLARKE has been here before but it has been such a long and unlikely route back to the top of a British Open leaderboard that when he was cheered up the 18th at Royal St George’s yesterday there was an air of a long-lost son returning.

Clarke is back where he belongs for the first time since the 1997 Open at Troon, when rounds of 67 and 66 gave him a share of the 18-hole lead and outright ownership of the 36-hole lead.

He finished runner-up back then, outlasted by American Justin Leonard, whose final-round 65 took the Claret Jug back to Texas.