Clarke on course for victory

GOLF/Smurfit European Open: Anyone climbing up the steps to the new back tee on the 17th hole, on what is now known in these parts as The North Course, is greeted with a rather intimidating sight.

It is that of the River Liffey, stretching in a gentle curve all the way down the left, and the fairway, narrower than it ever was, curling along with it - and it is representative of the sort of challenge facing competitors on a course that has been tweaked and toughened for the 25th anniversary staging of the €3 million Smurfit European Open, which starts today.

"The course," admitted Darren Clarke, the defending champion, "is certainly a shot and a half more difficult than it was last year."

Bernhard Langer, one of 12 past champions in the field, shook his head at the thought of playing a course of 7,337 yards with a par of 72 and remarked that it was "like another US Open course, very long and very demanding". And, indeed, there are strong similarities to the type of set-up that the USGA likes to inflict on players.

The fairways are narrow, the rough is rough and the greens are fast; and, of course, there are also the problems that invariably arise from a strong wind.

So, the stars of world golf gathered at The K Club are in for a difficult time of it, which really is how it should be. After all, the European Open, as Langer observed, is "one of the premier events on the European Tour", and consequently the field is one of the strongest to have teed-up on this side of the Atlantic for some time.

It features 16 of the top-20 players on the current Order of Merit, including money leader Retief Goosen, the fourth-ranked player in the world, and there are also six Major winners playing - four of whom have also won the European Open.

A year ago, Clarke got a monkey off his back, and the backs of every Irish player, when he won the title.

However, as Clarke, who received an honorary degree from the University of Ulster, Coleraine on Monday last in recognition of his role as a golfing ambassador and also for his fundraising for charity, goes in quest of the €515,585 top prize, he doesn't believe that his position as defending champion will alter his focus.

"That was a year ago. When you come back there are good memories," he said, "but when you stand on the first tee it doesn't make any difference if you are defending champion or if you finished 30th the previous year."

Clarke knows this course almost as well as he does any other. In the formative years of his professional career, he was attached here - and he believes the changes are for the better. "They're all good ones, and the greens are probably the best we have putted on this year," he said.

Of the changes to the course, the holder feels that the decision to move back the tee on the fifth by 24 yards is one of the more significant.

"You are hitting a longer iron into the green where it is raised above you . . . some holes are playing one or two clubs more," he said. "The course is playing all of the 7,300-plus yards. There are no easy holes. Dr Smurfit wants to give us as big a challenge as we can get, and he has done that." In the circumstances, it helps to be a big hitter; and Clarke is one of the longer players on tour.

Ironically, though, Clarke is a fan of the old persimmon driver - "I'd ban it," he said of new technology, adding: "If we go back to persimmon we don't need 7,300 yard courses. In America they banned the aluminium baseball bats for professional players, they have to use a wooden bat. They got it in time, unfortunately we didn't." But Clarke admitted that "we are too far down the road" for such change to occur in golf.

With the course playing every one of its yards, long and accurate driving will be a necessity. "You've got to be straight with all the trees, but it is in wonderful shape," said Langer. "I think the fairways are close to perfect, the tees are great, the bunkers seem to be good and most of the greens too."

Big-hitters like Goosen, Angel Cabrera and Thomas Bjorn - seeking to reproduce his play on the par fives last year, when he was 14-under - like the course, and should do well, and Colin Montgomerie also dispelled any notions that the back injury which afflicted him in the Irish Open at Fota Island last week was anything to be too concerned about. "All is well," he said.

The Irish challenge is a strong one, with 13 players in the field: Clarke, who gave a hint of his well-being with seven birdies in yesterday's pro-am, and Harrington, who had only one less, are obviously the two main contenders for a home win.

Paul McGinley is back, and refreshed, while the other Irishmen competing are Eamonn Darcy - playing in his last regular tour event before he turns 50 next month - Des Smyth, Graeme McDowell, Michael Hoey, Philip Walton, Gary Murphy, Ronan Rafferty, David Walker, John Dignam and John Dwyer.

As is to be expected, the foreign challenge is exceptionally strong. And, yet, two of the top-three players from the world rankings in the field are Irish: Harrington is 12th, Clarke 14th. Both have it in them to win; but Clarke, who anticipates using some of the low punched shots that he intends to use in the upcoming British Open at Muirfield, could be the one.

It is a matter of some intrigue that Per-Ulrik Johansson successfully defended his title here in 1997, and Lee Westwood did likewise in 2000. Warming to the theme, Clarke remarked: "There are some courses we go and play and there are some you like which fit easily to your eye - and this seems to be the one for me." And playing in a comfortable environment is half the battle.