Bjorn banishes the demons

British Masters: The ones that get away can hurt the hardest. In truth, it didn't matter that Darren Clarke had started so far off the pace yesterday that he could well have been chasing a wild goose.

To him, winning the British Masters was a thoroughly realistic goal and, for a time on a balmy summer's day at the Forest of Arden, it seemed that the 36-year-old Tyrone man, who has been starved of a PGA European Tour title for the guts of 20 months, was poised to achieve a most unlikely victory.

Unfortunately for Clarke, it didn't work out that way.

When it mattered most, the albatrosses and the birdies which had seen him move to within a stroke of the lead at one point of his final round dried up. Instead, he was to finish three strokes outside a place in the play-off in which Thomas Bjorn triumphed at the expense of Englishmen David Howell and Brian Davis. All three had finished on six-under-par 282.

Once again, the golfing gods proved their fickleness.

For the first three rounds, players had been forced to combat strong winds. Yesterday, though, the weather gave way to benign conditions that resulted in players getting retribution on the course. But not Michael Campbell, who had carried a three-shot lead into the final round. Ironically, despite perfect scoring conditions, the Kiwi was one of the few to struggle and a 73 was to prove a shot too many.

Yet the title was to prove difficult to claim, with a number of players pushing their claims down the stretch: Howell, for one, finished birdie-birdie-eagle-bogey to catapult him from the fringes to a 69 that enabled him to join Bjorn - who had finished in the group ahead, also eagling the 17th - and Davis on six-under.

Bjorn, a man so demented with his game a year ago that he walked off the Smurfit course at the K Club after just six holes of his first round in the European Open, had no such qualms. His rehabilitation, it seems, has been completed.

This was his eighth European Tour title but the first since he claimed the 2002 BMW International Open, a gap of 57 events on the European circuit.

Howell won't have fond memories of the 18th, a par three over water to a bunkered green. Yesterday, the flag was 214 yards away and the Englishman, seeking only his second tour win, required a par on the 72nd hole to take the €417,753 winner's cheque.

But he put his tee-shot into the right-hand bunker and failed to get up and down. So he had to play the 18th hole on a further two occasions in the play-off before being forced to give a congratulatory handshake to Bjorn.

The story of the play-off was simple. At the first tie hole, Howell pulled his tee-shot left but made a good up-and-down; Davis's tee-shot overshot the green, but he failed to make the save and was eliminated, while Bjorn saw his birdie putt nestle beside the hole. So Bjorn and Howell returned to the 18th tee.

This time, Howell found the same bunker that had proved his downfall in regulation. Again, he struggled to get the ball close to the pin and was left with a 12-footer for par. In contrast, Bjorn's tee-shot had found the middle of the putting surface and he rolled the putt dead. When Howell missed, the title was Bjorn's.

Bjorn was by far the most composed of the trio in the play-off. He'd effectively secured his place when he eagled the 17th by hitting a five-iron approach of 182 yards to 15 feet and then getting a good read on the putt from playing partner Gary Murphy, and, then, parred the 18th on three occasions inside an hour.

"The past 12 months has been a learning experience for me," conceded Bjorn. "I've been very hard on myself in the past, driving myself for success too much. I realised that the harder you try, the more you drive yourself into the ground and the harder it gets to win tournaments. I've had some tough times since my last win and it's nice to have that winning feeling again. It's been a long road and I've learned a lot about myself."

Clarke's final round 67 propelled him to a tied-seventh finish; yet, it could have been so much better. On the front nine, Clarke played majestically to turn in 30 (six under for the nine holes), the highlight being an albatross two on the 563-yard par five third. When he birdied the 12th to move to five-under, he was just a shot off the pace.

But he missed birdie putts on the 13th, 14th and 15th holes, then bogeyed the 16th, where he had "a horrible lie" over the back, failed to birdie the 17th, and bogeyed the 18th.

"I thought I had a chance starting out, if I could get off to a good start and I did. But I just didn't make the most of my opportunities on the back nine," said Clarke, who finished tied-seventh and won €56,313.

Murphy's 71 for 287 left him in tied-11th place and earned him a cheque for €40,959, but he confessed to being "disappointed", adding: "I played better than Thomas tee-to-green, but he's a bit more experienced and scored well. I think 71 was probably as bad a score as I could have shot for how I played."

Graeme McDowell's final round 66 moved him up 26 places to tied-16th, earning him €32,534.

Damien McGrane, who misses this week's Nissan Irish Open due to the communion of his daughter Gemma, finished in tied-24th (€24,564), while Paul McGinley closed with a 68 for tied-36th (€17,545).

For much of the day McGinley had seemed set to win a bonus of a €50,000 Jaguar for being nearest the pin on the 18th, only for Oliver Watson in the fifth-last group to finish closer.