Clarke closing in on unlikely win

The Smurfit European Open was an event Darren Clarke was going to miss in the run-up to the Open Championship. But tomorrow he could well win it.

Clarke changed his schedule when his wife, battling heart problems on top of cancer, was taken into hospital at the end of May.

This is the Ulsterman’s first tournament since then and he went into the third round today just a stroke behind Welshman Jamie Donaldson and Dane Thomas Bjorn.

“Coming into this week winning was not really in my thought process at all - and it’s still not,” he said. “If it happens it happens.”

The situation at home is obviously afecting Clarke’s outlook and the normally fiery temperament is understandably nowhere to be seen.

On the putts that got away he commented: “If they went in they went in and if they didn’t so be it. I would like to be like that all the time. Extenuating circumstances, we’ll say.”

Clarke, winner in 2001 and holder of the K Club course record with a magical European Tour best 60 six years ago, stands four under par in the race for the first prize of €567,000.

With victory could come a shot at golf’s biggest cheque – the £1m (€1.5m) in the HSBC World Match Play Championship at Wentworth in October – although Angel Cabrera and Retief Goosen are currently favourites to claim the two places on offer from a mini-Order of Merit which ends tomorrow.

Bjorn could snatch that guaranteed €89,000 bonus as well by triumphing tomorrow and what a turnaround that would be in the tournament he quit after six holes last year during the worst slump he has known.

That was on the other course across the River Liffey, but the memories had to be there when he checked into the same hotel room this week.

What he also remembers, though, is that on this lay-out – the one chosen for next September’s Ryder Cup – he played the par fives in 14 under while Clarke was winning four years ago and for that grabbed a £100,000 (€150,000) diamond necklace for his wife Pernilla.

The slump followed his loss of the 2003 Open from three ahead with four to play, but once he emerged from it he felt a stronger person for it and that helped him win the British Masters at the Forest of Arden in May.

“There are a lot of guys that go through stuff like that,” he said.

“You can try to stand on the driving range and battle your way through or you can go home and get a bit of perspective on things.

“I chose the second one and I think that was the best thing I ever did. The one thing I take from the experience is that most good players will bounce back from situations like that.”

Donaldson has come back from a totally different situation, a career-threatening back problem which put him out for six months last season and meant he had to seek a medical extension to his European Tour membership.

The 29-year-old former Welsh amateur champion, who partnered Luke Donald and Paul Casey when Britain and Ireland finished second in the World Team Championships five years ago, has also missed the last three events because it flared up again.

Donaldson was lying second when he had to quit the Spanish Open in April last year and this is his best chance since his return to display his talent on a big stage.

“It’s what we play for,” he said, looking ahead to the opportunity.

Alongside Clarke are England’s Graeme Storm and Jonathan Lomas, Australian Brett Rumford and Dane Anders Hansen, but the favourite is probably still defending champion Goosen, who is just two back.

Already out are Ryder Cup quartet Padraig Harrington, Paul McGinley, Paul Casey and Ian Poulter.

Casey is a real worry. He has missed the cut in his last four events, pulled out of the US Open after an opening 85 and is 55 over par for his last nine rounds. He insists, however, he hit rock bottom some time ago and is climbing out.

Harrington also finished nine over par yesterday, his worst halfway total in Europe since 1996. But there is no real alarm with the Open in two weeks in mind. He won in America last Sunday and would not have played this week but for the fact that it was a tournament in his home country.