Clarke thrilled by 'special' win

Darren Clarke was able to reflect today on achieving one of his main career goals – winning a stroke play event on American soil.

Ideally he wanted it to be a major. But when the time came last night, it was still a big one.

All the game’s top names were gathered in Akron, Ohio, for the NEC World Championship and the 35-year-old Northern Irishman did not just beat them. He thrashed them.

Already a million dollars richer for his victory over Tiger Woods in the final of the 2000 Andersen Consulting Match Play in California – another World Golf Championships event – Clarke collected 1,050,000 US dollars (€966,000) for a hugely impressive four-stroke triumph.

“I am absolutely thrilled and delighted,” he said. “The match play was fantastic to win, but this one is every bit as special.

“To be only the second person to win two behind Tiger (Woods has now captured seven) is pretty good.” No other European has even managed one.

A closing 67 gave the Ryder Cup star a 12-under-par aggregate of 268. Jonathan Kaye was second, Davis Love third on seven under and two more Americans, Woods and Chris Riley, joint fourth one shot further back.

Woods narrowed his deficit from five to two with a front nine charge at the Firestone course where he had won on his last three trips, but could not sustain the challenge.

Clarke, only one ahead after 54 holes, had eagled the second and birdied the fourth, but after bogeying the next he picked up further strokes on the ninth, 11th and 13th – the last of them an outrageous 55-foot putt that had “this is your week” written all over it.

Without a victory for 14 months he knew not to count any chickens and when he bogeyed the 15th and 16th the trophy and huge cheque still had to be earned. Kaye, however, also dropped a shot on the 16th to remain four behind and with that was thinking more of being runner-up than catching Clarke.

“I wasn’t really looking at the leaderboards all day,” said Clarke, who is based in Surrey, England. “I didn’t feel any pressure from anybody coming from behind.

“I can still play a bit – I’m 17th in the world and I haven’t got there for no reason. I should be able to deal with a few things.

“I said that if I won it would be great, but if I didn’t it wasn’t going to make a bit of difference to me whatsoever. That was the attitude I had.

“There were a couple of roars (from Woods’ gallery up ahead), but thankfully not that many, so I knew he wasn’t making eagles. But I don’t have time to start worrying about what anybody else was doing.”

Told that the first prize was 50,000 dollars (€46,000) more than he received at La Costa he said: “That won’t last very long. I think I will be running through most of that tonight.

“At the least I will make a good effort at it. I won’t be trying hard either.”

He had a private jet waiting – he plays in Boston this week – but added: “I have yet to decide where it’s taking me. I will ask the pilot if he knows anywhere.”

Fellow Irishman Padraig Harrington could not join in the celebrations because he was already heading home to Dublin, where his wife Caroline went into hospital for the birth of their first child.

The baby had been due last Monday, but when doctors said it looked like being a week late Harrington made the decision not to fly back after the United States PGA Championship, but to continue on from Rochester, New York, to Akron, Ohio.

While finishing with a 70 for four over and 39th place Harrington received word that things were happening.

Coming off the last green Harrington showed a message on his mobile phone from his wife saying: “You concentrate on your job and I will do mine.”

He said: “I text her out on the course on the 10th and didn’t get a reply immediately. I thought she must have gone in. Then I got that reply when I was on about the 13th.

“I hope she has the baby in the next 10 minutes for her sake. Obviously, I will just get the good news as soon as possible.

“The last couple of days have been tough, I have got to say. I have wanted to go home. We were hoping it would go a couple of days more and that would make everything all right, but it looks like it’s not to be.

“But we can’t have everything. As long as I have a healthy baby and a healthy wife at the end of it all I will be a very happy man.

“My flight from here to JFK (in New York) is 5pm. I will get home about seven in the morning.”