Open dream still alive for Clarke

For Darren Clarke and Colin Montgomerie the Open marks a line in the sand for the two golfers.

To say they have been running on empty since their Ryder Cup heroics last September is a major understatement.

In Clarke’s case the reasons are all too obvious.

Can anyone forget the emotion which carried him around The K Club just outside Dublin when he accepted a late invitation from captain Ian Woosnam to help Europe to yet another demolition of the United States?

Can anyone forget the way his face crumpled, his shoulders heaved and the tears flowed on the 16th green as he beat Zach Johnson 3&2 to complete the dying wish of his wife Heather who had insisted he played in the match?

Or the tender embrace he shared with Tiger Woods?

How Clarke kept body and nerve together that week, down to the euphoria of his laddish drinking contest with Woosie on the balcony of the clubhouse, we will never know.

But his golf game has paid for it since.

While the world’s media spotlight was upon him and he was battling to fulfil his wife’s wish his game remained intact.

Life has since taken on a different perspective and it was no surprise he journeyed around Europe and America for months without making a single cut.

The anonymity of the United States appealed to him. No-one continually to ask the difficult questions.

His poor form saw him fall out of the world top 100. Hardly surprising when you consider that hitting a golf ball has come a very poor second to raising his two sons Tyrone and Conor.

It is why there is no pressure on him at Carnoustie and why the tournament he would love to win most might just act as a psychological boost to get his game going again.

The fact is Clarke turns 39 next month and along with Montgomerie he belongs to that unenviable club whose members are saddled with the label of being the best golfers never to win a major.

American Todd Hamilton has won the Open this century. Ben Who? – otherwise known as Ben Curtis – has won the Open this century.

Even Paul Lawrie, a former Ryder Cup golfer in his own right but who would never claim to be in the same class as Clarke or Montgomerie, has won the Open.

But the big one eludes Europe’s big two.

In Montgomerie’s case it is a mixture of bad luck and being unable to take his chances.

This year, for perhaps the first time, he approaches his favourite week with no pressure of expectation having sacked his caddie Alastair McLean for a second time and played like a drain for the past few months.

He used a local caddie at the US Open, but was reported to have fallen out with him during a second round 82 which was his second-worst score in a major.

The eight-time European number one has been drifting in the world rankings and has not won since the Hong Kong Open at the end of 2005.

True, he appears to have sorted out his private life after a well-documented and occasionally fractious divorce from former wife Eimar and has revelled in the spotlight of being photographed with beautiful women.

But, try as he might, he does not seem to be able to break free of the underachievement which dogs him when major week comes around.

It is always the same. He turns up on the eve of the tournament laughing and joking and enjoying the badinage with reporters and by the time he has reached the 18th green it is all he can do to give them the time of day.

He has tried to control such intensity, but no cameraman, no steward, no small child rustling a packet of crisps is spared the evil Monty glare when the Open challenge is under way.

Approaching his mid-40s he should know better.

But if by some freak of nature either Montgomerie or Clarke, twin pillars of European golf for so long, wrapped their fingers around the Claret Jug this year there would not be a dry eye in the house.

Nor more deserving winners.