The sweetest moment of all

IT WAS four years ago that Darren Clarke read in an English broadsheet newspaper that he was continuing an “inexorable descent towards irrelevance”.

He has kept the article ever since and last night he was finally able to laugh it off.

Less than a month shy of his 43rd birthday and in his 54th major championship, Clarke finally realised his golfing potential and found the perfect and previously elusive balance of talent, attitude and discipline to win the British Open.

He had been a runner-up at Royal Troon in 1997, third at Royal Lytham & St Annes in 2001 and added a seventh place and three top-20 finishes in his previous 19 attempts.

Yesterday, he finally did it, by three strokes from American duo Phil Mickelson and Dustin Johnson, and no one could begrudge him his finest hour as he accepted the famous Claret Jug in the midst of a genuinely warm and generous outpouring of affection.

For a man who had endured the trials and tribulations of golf and life as well as some of its most joyous moments during that same 20-year period, most notably the loss of his wife Helen to cancer in 2006 followed shortly after by a Ryder Cup victory at The K Club, this was final confirmation that Clarke had a major prize to show for the talent he had possessed but never truly realised.

“To sit here and talk ... with this trophy being The Open champion just means the world to me,” said Clarke, who also picked up a first prize of €999,540 as well a €2 million bonus from his long-term sponsor Dunlop.

“In terms of what’s going through my heart, there’s obviously somebody who is watching down from up above there, and I know she’d be very proud of me. She’d probably be saying, ‘I told you so’. It’s been a long journey to get here. I’m 42 and I’m not getting any younger. But you know, I’ve got here in the end.”

And how. A final round of 70 continued Clarke’s impressive weekend of beautifully controlled links golf, super ball-striking and patches of hot putting in some of the worst wind and rain the championship had seen. He saw off charges from both Johnson and Mickelson with steady golf, which also included a crucial eagle putt at the seventh hole. And when both Americans faded down the stretch — Mickelson’s run of an eagle and four birdies in his first 10 holes followed by four bogeys over the next six, while Johnson went out of bounds at the par-five 14th to end his bid — Clarke still ploughed on, finding fairways, recovering well and riding his luck but saving his par when he needed to with clutch putting.

And tellingly, he had had a pre-round session with sports psychologist Bob Rotella.

“He talked this morning about all he has been through in life,” Dr Rotella said. “He has had some downs. ‘You’ve got to feel like you are destined to win some of these’; he said, ‘I know doc’, before he teed off. ‘I want to go out there and trust myself and be happy for the whole 18 holes and whatever happens, if I win or I don’t win.’

“We talked about staying in the moment. The other thing for him is acceptance, his tendency is to get down and beat himself up.”

There was no need for that on this day of days for Clarke, as in the zone yesterday, according to manager Chubby Chandler, as when he beat Tiger Woods to win the WGC Accenture Matchplay in ‘00.

“He just had one of those weeks where anything can happen and it did again today,” Chandler added.

He now has three majors in a row as a manager thanks to Clarke, US Open champion Rory McIlroy – who had to settle for a tie for 25th yesterday at seven over — and Masters winner Charl Schwartzel.

Ireland, meanwhile, has now won six out of the last 17 going back to Padraig Harrington’s Open victory at Carnoustie in 2007. Four years ago no Irish golfer had won a major since Fred Daly in the 1947 Open. How times have changed.

This one, though, may well be the sweetest.