Clarke: Major boost is like ‘15th club in the bag’
Clarke, 43 this Sunday, will take his place in the traditional first and second-round grouping of the first three major winners of the year and though his presence alongside Masters champion Charl Schwartzel and, in particular, US Open winner Rory McIlroy for first two rounds will bring a welcome air of familiarity to proceedings, it is his newly-won status of a month ago that will be the real fillip this week.
“Now that I’ve won a first Major Championship, I can come to this week, and the other majors and WGCs I now qualify for, as though I’ve got a 15th club in the bag,” Clarke said.
“And that’s because I’ve been there and I’ve done it.
“But going forward that’s an ambition I want to tap into, definitely. I was in a good frame of mind that week and hopefully I can get myself back into that frame of mind this week.”
An early morning practice round with McIlroy that required a 4.30am wake-up call yesterday certainly mimicked his approach at Royal St George’s as did his performance over those nine holes.
“Totally different golf courses but I’ve played the same nine holes on Tuesday morning this morning as I did at Royal St George’s on Tuesday morning, i.e., poorly. So it’s pretty similar, so I shall be spending quite a bit of time on the range trying to figure it out a little bit.”
With the tournament set to be played in hot, humid temperatures and on a perfectly manicured parkland golf course, the similarities with the wind and rain and bumps and dunes of the Sandwich links end there and Clarke added: “The heat is going to be a massive, massive factor this week, so totally different.
“I’m a finely-tuned athlete, so it should not affect me much,” he joked.
“It’s going to be hot. It’s going to be hot for everybody. Last week in Akron it was hot, as well, but it’s going to be even hotter here. You’ve just got to do your best, and, you know, for me I’ve got to drink an awful lot of fluids and try and keep focused on what I’m doing. But the heat is going to be tough for everybody this week.”
Having missed the Irish Open cut at Killarney & on his return to competition following the British Open, Clarke’s post-major slump continued last week as he opened the WGC-Bridgestone Invitational with a seven-over 77 and finished 12 over after four rounds in a tie for 68th in the no-cut event.
Not exactly inspiring stuff but, again, closely mimicking his T66 in the rain-shortened Scottish Open a week before The Open.
Yet this will be Clarke’s third successive tournament in as many weeks, which followed on from the well-documented celebrations that greeted his Sandwich victory and if they caught up with him in the form of “man-flu” in Killarney, fatigue combined with the Atlanta heat and humidity may be expected to take its toll this week.
“All I will say is I’m still a little tired,” Clarke conceded. “I’ve had no time off since the Open, so I’ll be looking forward to a couple of weeks off after this week. You know, I haven’t played that well since, mainly due to the fact I have not had any time off.
“It’s great to be here competing in all of the tournaments I want to play in, but it will be nice to have a little bit of a rest the next couple of weeks.”
And never has there been a better time to redeploy some of that famous, Dr Bob Rotella-inspired relaxation and patience than a week such as this.
“If I can play my best, my best is good enough to contend and to win. And if I don’t play my best, I’m trying as hard as I can. So, we shall see. My expectations are pretty even keel. If I play my best, I’ll see how I get on.
“You know, the game is... what was it Doc said, Sunday, the winner, the next day everyone tees up even keel, and the winner Sunday doesn’t really make a difference, you’re all competing against each other the following week. The game is quite fickle. You can play great one week and not so good the next week, and a couple of good breaks here or there makes a huge difference. So learning to be patient with it is hugely important.”
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