Coceres holds his nerve

Part of the rich folklore that surrounds a certain Jose Eusebio Coceres, aside from the one which asserts he carved his first golf club from a tree branch and used a stone for a ball, is that he has Indian blood.

In which case, the Argentinian's senses would have been more aware than most of the attempted ambush - performed most notably by an Irishman, Paul McGinley, and a Swede, Patrik Sjoland - in yesterday's final round of the Dubai Desert Classic at the Dubai Creek course.

McGinley doesn't possess any Indian lineage, unless some unknown ancestors settled in bygone years on the Donegal coastline, but he displayed considerable stealth in yesterday's final round to manoeuvre his way into a tie for runners-up position.

While Tiger Woods wears red for his so-called "power colours" on the final day, McGinley donned those of the Dublin football team for such inspiration: his final round effort of 67 for 12-under-par 276, however, proved two short of Coceres's winning total.

It wasn't a time for the Irishman to be depressed, though, and McGinley was positively bubbling with enthusiasm about the state of his game. Indeed, he has secured five top-five finishes in his last seven tournaments (including two at the tail-end of last season) and is mystified why such form hasn't been rewarded by a positive move up the world rankings.

"I've asked Lee Westwood's dad to figure it out, because he seems to be the only person I know who understands it," said McGinley, who was 127th in the rankings heading into Dubai.

Yet, the Dubliner is aware that if he maintains his rich form, especially in fields of such quality, then it is only a matter of time before he achieves his primary goal which is to win another tournament.

McGinley's last success on the European Tour came in the now-defunct Oki Pro-Am in Spain in 1997. Since then, he has gone tantalisingly close, including tied-third recently in the Portuguese Open; but without any success.

Yesterday, the sort of wind that locals describe as "sneaky" caressed the Creek course and demanded good course management from players. But Coceres, who had a five-shot lead on his chief pursuer Jamie Spence at the start of the day, was determined to make others win the tournament rather than him losing it. Which is how he played, making 15 straight pars in a solid, workmanlike performance.

So it was that McGinley, amongst others, was forced to go in pursuit. Unfortunately for the Irishman, birdie putts at the first and second slipped by the hole and, then, on the third, his approach fell short of the green and plugged in a bunker. With barely room enough to put one foot in the sand, he played out for the side of the green, finished on the collar, and walked away with a bogey.

It's indicative of his current mindset, however, that McGinley immediately erased the blemish from his mind and the K Club-attached touring professional responded with six birdies over the remaining 15 holes. Agonisingly, further birdie attempts - most notably at the 10th, 11th and 14th - failed to drop, which would have left senior Coceres with a more demanding finish to his own round.

"To be honest, I wasn't paying attention to what he (Coceres) was doing. It was his tournament to lose," said McGinley, eventually settling for tied-second with Sjoland, who also produced a closing 67. It all contrived to give McGinley quite a nice pay-day, collecting Stg£73,780 and lifting him up to seventh place in the Order of Merit.

McGinley's good form can be attributed to a number of factors. "As the saying goes, `the secret of my overnight success is that I've worked hard for years'," said McGinley, who believes that a combination of fitness, technique, new equipment and psychology have all contributed to his enhanced performances.

No matter how well McGinley played yesterday, the real focus was on Coceres. But no cracks appeared, at least not until the 18th hole - where he put his drive into water and finished with a double-bogey six - when it was all too late for his rivals.

Coceres, whose only previous tournament win came in the Catalonia Open in 1994, collected the winner's cheque for Stg£141,610

and can be expected to lavish some favours on his family at home. Given that he is a golfer with a social conscience, some of the money is destined to feed and clothe the poor in his homeland.

On Saturday, after establishing a five-shot lead, he recalled his poverty stricken background in the South American jungle territory of Chaco, some 700 miles north of Argentinian capital Buenos Aires and close to the Paraguay and Brazil borders. His commitment in the past has been to feed street children in Buenos Aires by setting up food tents.

When he clinched his victory yesterday, he unfurled a flag on the 18th green which carried the names of his three children, his family and friends. It said, simply: "Sorry!" This was a reference to his loss in the Argentine Open, to American Scott Dunlap, last December when he carried a similar lead to the one he held yesterday into the closing round.

There was no collapse yesterday, and he didn't feel that he was tempting fate in making up the flag. "I had a good feeling about today," said Coceres. Indeed, his play was very solid - even if he had to wait until the 16th green for his first birdie. He finished the tournament two shots clear of McGinley and Sjoland, and four clear of a quartet that featured Lee Westwood, Paul Lawrie, Jamie Spence and Stephen Gallacher.

Meanwhile, some of the exertions of the previous week caught up on Darren Clarke. Seven days on from his World Matchplay win over Tiger Woods, Clarke had a final round 73 for 283. It gave him a tied-17th place finish and he admitted: "I hit a wall a bit today. I had no feeling on the greens and it will be nice to get a break before returning to the United States." Clarke's next tournament will be next week's Bay Hill Invitational, the first of three in a four-week spell in the States.