Clarke has to knock game into shape

Darren Clarke has finally got his body in good shape, now he needs to do the same with his golf game.

A new fitness regime has helped Clarke lose more than two stone since he began working with personal trainer Steve Hampson, a former rugby league international, last year.

But after a good start to the season the Ulsterman’s game has been in anything but good health and the former champion goes into today’s first round of the Accenture Match Play Championship on the back of three straight missed cuts.

The first of those was only by a single stroke the week after he had finished third in the season-opening Mercedes Championships in Hawaii.

However, things have gone from bad to worse since with rounds of 70 and 78 at the Buick Invitational followed by an horrific opening round of 82 in the Nissan Open in nearby Los Angeles last week.

A misunderstanding between Clarke and coach Butch Harmon was to blame but the 35-year-old hopes a return to the scene of arguably his biggest triumph will see him regain top form.

“I am in the gym six days a week, working out two hours a day,” said Clarke, who faces Argentine veteran Eduardo Romero in today’s first round.

“I wish my golf was the same as I feel. I am putting my head down, working on a couple of things with Butch that have not broken through yet but hopefully I will start playing better soon.

“I missed the cut by one in the Sony Open when I didn’t get up and down on the 18th and then went to see Butch for three days in Las Vegas.

“I just basically misunderstood what he was trying to get me to do so I worked on it and got myself into the wrong sort of position. When the shots started going left and then hooking another 15 yards it’s usually a dead giveaway something was wrong.

“Butch is very good at imparting information to me in a very simplified manner, as much as my brain can cope with. What he told me to do was the right thing, but I ended up doing something else.

“I was doing it right with him in Vegas, but then he was not with me when I played Torrey Pines and I was four under with eight holes to play and finished four over.”

Clarke is the only player other than Tiger Woods to have won more than one of the World Golf Championship (WGC) events since their inception in 1999, famously beating Woods in the 36-hole final here in 2000 and claiming the NEC Invitational last year.

And he believes the wet conditions will be to his advantage when the $7m event gets underway today.

“The greens have always been a little bit soft when we have been here,” Clarke added. “You have got to control the spin going into the greens, if you spin them too much it is tough to get them at the back flags.

“And because of playing in a lot of wind growing up at home I am used to chipping a lot of shots and hitting knockdown shots and that is why I think I have played well here in the past.

“I am comfortable trying to take the spin off the ball because you have to do that whenever you are playing links golf.”