Clarke leads the charge with Johnson in close pursuit

Darren Clarke putts on the ninth green on the third day of the Open golf championship at Royal St George's. Photograph: Peter Muhly/AFP/Getty Images

Rain, rain everywhere, and plenty of it fell on Darren Clarke and Dustin Johnson. But if the big man from Dungannon and the imposing son of South Carolina got wet they did not get swept away on a Saturday at Sandwich that made a fool of the know-all at the clubhouse bar, Mr Conventional Wisdom.

American golf is in terminal decline. Top-class professional golf is a young man's world these days. Really? Then try this leaderboard for size after three days of the 2011 Open Championship at Royal St George's. In first place we have Clarke, who followed two great rounds on Thursday and Friday with another beauty – great ball-striking, smart thinking and admirable mental fortitude in the face of conditions that proved the downfall of many, including the US Open champion Rory McIlroy, who slipped nine shots off the lead in the worst of the weather, and the English amateur Tom Lewis, who succumbed to a six-over-par 76.

Clarke signed for a one-under-par round of 69 and a 54-hole total of 205, five under par. Admittedly, he played in the best of the conditions, stepping on to the 1st tee when the torrential rain had stopped and the early starters were wringing out their socks for the 10th time. But even so, as the Americans like to say, he really did "golf his ball".

"My manager says I play my best golf when I'm fat," the Northern Irishman said earlier in this week. Presumably his manager bought him an extra large bag of chips on Sandwich's main street last night. More serious souls may point to his putting – he missed his share of short ones and three-putted twice today– and suggest that it may prove to be his downfall tomorrow.

They may have a point, but on the opposite side of the ledger there is the undeniable truth that no one has played better from tee-to-green than the Northern Irishman this week. weather is expected to be an improvement but sun hats will not be required. The breeze will be up and so will the demands on the players' ball-striking skills. If so, Clarke is in prime position to take back yet another major championship trophy to Northern Ireland.

What a night there would be in his home town of Portrush if that happened. Champagne would flow, and so would the tears. But as the man himself said after stepping off the 18th green – let's not get ahead of ourselves here.

Johnson is one shot back in second place, the just reward for a thoughtful, composed round of 68 that gave lie to his reputation as a talented but knuckle-headed thumper. Last year he shipped chances to win both the US Open and the PGA Championship – the first with some brainless shot selections over the opening few holes at Pebble Beach, the second with a rules infringement on the final hole.

Something has changed in the land of Johnson and that something is his caddie, Joe laCava, who worked for Fred Couples for years and is one of the best bagmen on the circuit. Pay rise for Joe? At the very least there will be a hefty bonus should his employer leave Royal St George's with the Claret Jug and the ?900,000 winner's cheque.

But Johnson has to win first, of course, and Clarke may have something to say about that. So may the 40-year-old Thomas Bjorn, who will begin the final round three shots behind on two under par, and the ageless Miguel Angel Jimenez, who is four shots back. Similarly, those representing the nation that supposedly cannot play golf any more, the United States of America, will also have a say. Lucas Glover, on one under par, has won a major championship before – the 2009 US Open – and so has Phil Mickelson, who said this week he intended to erase the memories of a mostly terrible Open Championship record – he has only one top-10 finish, third in 2003 – and start afresh.

At the time this sounded like yet another of Lefty's deliciously hare-brained ideas but as he crept up the leaderboard it did not seem quite so daft. Mickelson ended the third round in seventh place on level par, tied with his young countryman Anthony Kim.

The American presence was bolstered, and perhaps best represented, by the 22-year-old California-born Rickie Fowler, who was paired alongside McIlroy for the third successive day and, irony of ironies, gave his Northern Irish pal a lesson in how to play seaside golf.

Fowler also gave the perfect explanation of why this form of golf, especially in trying conditions such as these, is the purest form. "I love links golf. I love the variety and the options you get on a golf course like this. There are so many different ways you can play golf,'' he said. "And I feel I can hit different shots. I like to hit different shots. That's just the way I grew up learning how to play the game."

Well said, young sir, and well played. Fowler may look like the long lost son of a Beach Boy but he has the soul of Old Tom Morris. He would be a wonderful Open champion, one who would represent everything that is good about the Royal and Ancient game. But then again, so would Darren Clarke.

View the original article here

The Open 2011: Darren Clarke close – and still hopeful of a cigar

Darren Clarke maintained his lead after three rounds to close on what would be the first Major of his career. Photograph: Richard Sellers/Sportsphoto/Sportsphoto Ltd./Allstar

With all this gilded youth about the place, golf's old guard appear geriatric. Phil Mickelson is starting to look like one of the Sopranos and Darren Clarke, who leads the Open field by one stroke, has entered his Johnny Cash years, marching about in black while the 22-year-old Rickie Fowler turns up for work in a white ensemble with pink spots.

"Did I ever doubt I would get myself back into this position? No," Clarke said before returning to the house of his agent, Chubby Chandler, "to stuff my face, go to bed about 10, try not to drink too much". As this candid debrief unfolded, America's Dustin Johnson was one shot back, on four under, and Fowler was tied with Thomas Bjorn on two under par after Clarke's third round of 69.

Of all the nearly men in majors, Clarke is the European most in need of anointing, if you discount Colin Montgomerie, which age already has. In a BBC discussion on Friday night, Clarke was described as the most naturally gifted golfer on his island. As Irish players have won five majors since Padraig Harrington opened the door with his victory in the 2007 Open at Carnoustie, this is no minor claim.

But history is piled up against the 42-year-old from Dungannon, who describes his interests as "fishing, cigars, fine wines, cars and Liverpool FC". Whoever first said everyone has the face they deserve by 40 might have had Clarke in mind. His features speak of bonhomie and a good night out, and his frame has the soft bulk of a man born for middle age.

The big statistical barrier is that no golfer has won the Open after more than 15 attempts. That record belongs to Nick Price, in 1994. Nick Faldo needed 11 goes and Harrington 10, so perseverance does pay off. Clarke, though, is playing his 20th Open Championship. For his third round, during which he struck birdies at the 1st, 7th and 12th (and bogeys at 5 and 8), the rain ceased and the wind dropped, but history kept on intimating that his chance has already passed.

The oldest Open winner was Tom Morris Sr, at 46 years and 99 days, in 1867. In the modern era, that distinction belongs to Roberto de Vicenzo, who was 44 and 93 days, in 1967. The good news is that Clarke is not the sort to bend the knee to convention. "I've failed 20 times – well, 19 times – to lift the Claret Jug and I have an opportunity," he said. "But, at the moment, it's just an opportunity because the weather is going to be very windy again and there's a long way still to go in this championship."

At least he can count on home support as Fowler comes with a rattle. There is no such thing as antipathy from an Open gallery. The very worst you can expect is warm applause. But there are grades or types of support, from adoring (Rory McIlroy) to parental (Tom Lewis) to nostalgic (Tom Watson). Clarke draws on another kind of empathy.

His appeal stems from the old love of flawed characters with whom the masses can identify. Imperfection is celebrated if it comes with warmth of spirit. There are those who say this is a simplified view of Clarke. But wedged forever in the public's mind is the memory of him turning up for the 2006 Ryder Cup three weeks after his wife, Heather, had succumbed to cancer. The elegiac feel on the 1st tee at the K Club near Dublin that day remains vivid. The mass appropriation of Clarke's trauma was discomforting at times, yet there was no mistaking the sense of a man enacting Beckett's greatest line: "I can't go on, I'll go on." He was at the core of a victorious Europe team, but has not been seen much since at the forefront of major action.

He said before his face-stuffing expedition: "I was once given a quote from Ken Brown [part of the BBC commentary team]. He said to me before my first Ryder Cup in Valderrama in 1997: 'Don't let your golf game determine your attitude, let your attitude determine your golf game.' If my attitude is good then the ball-striking is going to be good."

His closest brush with immortality in individual events came 14 years ago, at Troon in 1997, when he shot 67 and 66 before two weekend rounds of 71 left him three strokes behind America's Justin Leonard. Four years later, at Royal Lytham and St Annes, he tied for third, four shots off David Duval's winning score. In those days, it seemed a matter of simply guessing the year Clarke would place his mitts on the Claret Jug.

Here in Kent, he shot 68 in each of his first two rounds. On Friday, he nailed an 80-foot eagle putt on the 7th and carded five birdies, three bogeys and a double-bogey at the 4th. "I couldn't have hit any better from tee to green. On the green was not quite the same, to say the least," he said of Saturday's round. But support grew throughout the day: "Even when I did give myself opportunities and was missing them, they were still roaring at me: 'Come on Darren, come, on Darren,' which is just wonderful. There are very few tournaments where I would get that support."

Now engaged to Alison Campbell, a former Miss Northern Ireland (an irrelevant detail, but somehow still obligatory), Clarke wore a settled look as he and Lucas Glover advanced through soft evening light as the last pair in. Players who had braved slicing wind and lashing rain in the morning doubtless stuck two fingers up to their television screen out of jealousy. Pure meteorological chance smiled on Clarke as he exposed an anomaly that was largely missed on Friday night.

The world's top two ranked players – England's Luke Donald and Lee Westwood – missed the cut here, casting further doubt on the ability of either to win a first major championship. This really is a hellish realm. The longer the wait, the more insistent the questions and the harsher the judgments. Clarke has spent most of his career on the borderline between promise and fulfilment, but now he finds himself gazing down at an Open field with 18 holes between him and a coronation.

Close, but no cigar, has been his story, but you can feel the flame.

View the original article here

There's an awful long way to go - Clarke

Darren Clarke's first-round 68 was a fine effort from the 42-year-old but his 68 on Friday was a real beauty and vaulted him to the top at halfway. Photograph: Andrew Boyers/Action Images

Another day at the wide-open Open, where nothing has gone as predicted except the looming presence of a Northern Irish golfer at the top of the leaderboard.

Alas for the soothsayers and those in search of an orderly life, that golfer is not the mop-top kid from Holywood, Rory McIlroy, but the rotund gent from Dungannon, Darren Clarke.

Wild weather is forecast for the weekend at Royal St George's but the two friends will relish the challenge of winning another major championship for the world's smallest golfing superpower. At the very least they know they have a chance of victory, which is more than can be said of Luke Donald and Lee Westwood, the world's No1 and No2 golfers. The two Englishmen were tipped by many to win their first major but instead were homeward bound. Westwood missed the cut by one shot, Donald by three.

What a contrast their fortunes made with Clarke, who spent the preliminaries at Royal St George's fielding questions about McIlroy and the first two days of the main event reminding the world there is more than one golfer from his neck of the woods. A first-round 68 was a fine effort from the 42-year-old but his 68 on Friday was a real beauty and vaulted him to the top at halfway, on four under, alongside the under-rated American Lucas Glover.

"There is an awful long way to go and the course is playing quite tough, so the tournament is still wide open for an awful lot of players," Clarke said. He was right about that. Martin Kaymer and Charl Schwartzel, the US PGA champion and the Masters winner, were prominent in the cavalry charge behind the leaders. As was the young amateur Tom Lewis, who followed his opening day 65 with a very respectable 74, That was good enough for a one-under total of 139, though it did not quite match up to the 20-year-old's expectations. Still, at least he gets to play at the weekend of the 2011 Open – which is more than can be said of Graeme McDowell and Ian Poulter, two more illustrious names who missed the cut – and he got to watch his playing partner Tom Watson make a hole-in-one at the par-three 6th.

McIlroy is one shot further back after a one-under 69, the highlight of which was a stunning greenside bunker shot on the final hole – from a plugged lie and over a lip that must have looked the north face of the Eiger. He rolled in a 10-footer for par. "I put a lot of pressure on me to hole that putt, and it makes me feel pretty good going into the weekend," he said.

The US Open champion was not alone. Indeed, with the 72 players who made the cut within seven shots of the lead, all of them will believe victory is possible, and of those perhaps as many as half are right. A man could lose a wardrobe of shirts backing the accuracy of weather forecasts but barring another Michael Fish moment the Kent coast is likely to be battered by wind and rain for most of Saturday, in which case hold on to your hat, your umbrella and your temper.

"It's going to be a battle," predicted Kaymer after his day was done. If so, then who is up for the fight?

Clarke certainly looks and sounds like he is, even if he is some way removed from the consistently world-class golfer he was a decade ago. Yet there are some things that have not been stripped from the Northern Irishman's armoury. He can still win golf tournaments – as he did in Spain earlier this year – and he can still play in bad weather, as befits someone who grew up playing seaside golf and spends most of his practice time at Royal Portrush, the legendary links on the Antrim coast.

"I've been doing a lot of practising in bad weather because that's usually what we get in Portrush," he said. "Actually, it's not always that bad, but it has certainly been the case that I've been getting used to playing in conditions like this over the winter. Hopefully, it will stand me in good stead."

It will. And so will the quality of his golf. It is not for nothing that Clarke is often mentioned in the same sentence as Tiger Woods and young Mr McIlroy when the subject of great ball-striking comes up. You don't need the man from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology to tell you that a purely struck ball will be hard to knock off course, wind or no wind.

However there must be a question about his mentality – will he maintain his composure when, as will inevitably happen, something goes wrong?

The same applies to every other contender, including Dustin Johnson, on two under par, and Phil Mickelson, one shot further back. The two Americans are unquestionably talented enough to win this tournament, but how will they fare in a gale?

Johnson hits the ball skyscraper high, which is not ideal (to say the least) and Mickelson has a long and mostly inglorious record at the Open. Suffice to say, the weather in his home town of San Diego is a tad different from what lies ahead. But hope springs eternal for sunny Phil. "Historically, I have not played well in wind and rain but I welcome the challenge." He better had. And so will everyone else.

View the original article here

World's top two crash out as Clarke leads way at Sandwich

Lee Westwood left the course without facing the media after finishing four over par at the Open. Photograph: Andrew Redington/Getty Images

The world's top two players, Luke Donald and Lee Westwood, were the most high-profile casualties of a compelling day at the Open Championship that ended with five of the top 10 missing the cut.

Donald, the world No1, dropped four shots in the closing four holes in slumping to a second-round 75 for an aggregate of six over, three more than qualified for the weekend. Earlier his fellow Englishman Westwood had signed for a 73, thereby missing out on the third and fourth rounds by a stroke.

Both had been strongly tipped to end their search for a first major victory but they will be onlookers as the leaders, Darren Clarke and Lucas Glover, head into the third round. Clarke and Glover are tied at four under par, one shot clear of Chad Campbell, Martin Kaymer, Thomas Bjorn and Miguel Angel Jimenez.

In a tightly packed field, 30 players are sitting at level par or better. Tom Lewis, the young amateur, failed to replicate his heroics of Thursday but remains at one under par. But his efforts have been overshadowed by the demise of the world's top two and other leading contenders including Graeme McDowell, ranked No9, from Northern Ireland.

Donald said he "couldn't get the feel" of the Royal St George's greens, a rare admission from someone with such a renowned short game. "I believe in my ability but for whatever reason it is not happening," said an exasperated Donald. "I feel like I have tried everything; I've been playing 10 years and played countless majors and come close a couple of times but I have to figure out a way to contend a bit more. I have to figure out a better way to play the Open. I have to do a better job of adapting to conditions on the day."

Donald has just one top-10 Open finish to his name in a decade and has missed the cut five times during that period.

Westwood, whom Donald replaced at the top of the pile, opted not to face the media after his second round. The 38-year-old three-putted three times on Friday, the latest example of how troubles on the greens are undermining his attempts to end a major drought. One clear and extenuating circumstance for Westwood, on this occasion at least, was noticeably tough pin placements.

Nick Watney, the world No10, and Matt Kuchar, who is three places higher, complete the group of the top-ranked players who departed Kent earlier than expected.

McDowell offered a rather harsh critique of his mindset after signing for 77 on Friday. "I was ready for this tournament but by the time I walked off the first green on Thursday I wasn't ready any more, it's very frustrating," he said. "I've always enjoyed the mental side of the game but I wouldn't say I'm enjoying it so much right now because I'm a bit of a mental case out there. I need an attitude readjustment. I need to care a bit less about the game.

"My attitude has been pretty average the last two days, just not having a lot of belief or confidence in myself. You can't wait for the golf ball to make you feel happy because it ain't going to make you feel happy every day."

The Northern Irishman's premature exit from Sandwich continues an inconsistent 2011. He has failed to hit anything like the heights which saw him claim the US Open a year ago.

"I didn't set out in 2011 trying to eclipse 2010 but deep inside I know I can do it, so maybe I want it too badly," he said. "This is the Open. We are under pressure. We want to do well, maybe I've been trying a little too hard the last couple days."

A disastrous 78 led to Ian Poulter tumbling out of the tournament, as did former champion Ernie Els. Padraig Harrington had his attempt to claim a third Open title ended after 36 holes. The Irishman improved on his Thursday score of 73 by two shots but still missed out, on the same two-round total as Westwood.

View the original article here