Clarke irons out faults

They stood in unexpected, morning sunshine here on the practice ground yesterday, two Irishmen at odds with their golfing world. For Padraig Harrington, the problem had to do with wasted time; for Darren Clarke it concerned a frustrating lack of confidence with his iron play.

Hitting practice shots in preparation for the $6 million Players' Championship which starts tomorrow, they presented a fascinating study in sporting contrasts - Harrington the cool craftsman, Clarke the emotional perfectionist. And later, by way of celebrating their first time together in this front-line event, they went off to play the front nine.

Clarke then had an appointment with Butch Harmon, whose prime coaching client also had shot-making problems at Bay Hill last weekend. But while Tiger Woods managed to overcome some serious waywardness with the driver en route to victory, Clarke shot 80 and 78, the worst successive rounds of his professional career.

By way of remedial action, he changed to a new set of irons yesterday. Then he turned to the supplier with the instruction: "I can't feel the clubhead. Lash the lead on and increase them by two swingweights." Within half an hour, the work had been done, the smoothly-finished lead hardly visible on the back of the blades.

"Over my two rounds at Bay Hill last week, I hit 10 and 11 fairways in regulation, so it's fairly obvious where the problem lay," said the Tyroneman. "It's irritating , to say the least. This is certainly not a course where you want to be looking for your game."

He went on: "Course management is absolutely vital to good scoring here. It means hitting each shot exactly where you want it. I couldn't have hoped to do that with the way my game was at Bay Hill." But he forced a smile: "I'm searching at the moment and I've still got two days to get things right." And, of course, he's got the formidable Harmon.

Normally, Clarke's early-season form would not have been designed to inspire confidence. But he seemed to have found some magic solution in late February last year when he captured the Accenture World Matchplay Championship at La Costa. And he won the Dimension Data tournament in South Africa last month, only to find himself consigned to former struggles.

Meanwhile, no Irish player, in my view, has ever managed his time better than Harrington. So one could imagine his frustration when, after arriving here on Friday with a view to acquiring knowledge of a strange venue, he managed to play only nine holes over the succeeding three days. The fact that he deliberately bypassed Bay Hill in the process, made it all the more annoying.

"I had nine holes on Saturday before the weather broke in earnest," he said. "Then the best I could manage was to hit balls in heavy rain on the practice ground on Sunday morning. Monday was a write-off: some shopping and the cinema."

He went on: "You can only win tournaments when you're relaxed and it's hard to relax when there's so much to do. Where my game is concerned, I feel I'm very close to getting the last pieces of the jigsaw together, but I'm not getting the opportunity to do the necessary work."

There seemed to be no cause for concern as he smashed driver shots arrow-straight down the range, but Harrington's demands of himself would go some way beyond such observations. Still, there has been inescapable evidence of significant progress, in more than his ball flight.

Though he made his US Masters debut last year by being in the world's top-50 by the end of 1999, he failed to get into the Players' field because he had slipped back to 54th in the rankings by March 20th, the qualifying deadline. Now, he is the field as the 18th ranked player in the world, only seven places behind Clarke, who seemed destined to enjoy an extended dominance in the top-20, from an Irish standpoint.

The more arrogant tournament professionals would have us modest club folk believe they "don't see water" on a golf course. Harrington has no such lofty notions approaching his debut on the Stadium Course. "I can see the water all right," he said. "And I have no intention of taking any chances with it."

This includes the infamous, short 17th, which has inflicted serious grief over the years. For instance, in 19 years of the Players' Championship here, it has produced a stroke average of 3.099. Indeed it was fourth in difficulty on the course last year at 3.303. Overall, it has yielded five holes in one, but 121 triple-bogeys or worse. The "worse" includes an eight by Len Mattiace when he was only a stroke out of the lead on the final day in 1998.

"A short-iron par-three always presents special difficulties, especially in the wind," said Harrington. "On holes such as the seventh at Pebble Beach, the eighth at Troon and the 17th here, it is very hard to control the ball. That's why they're such great little holes."

Could Harrington produce a winning debut this week? "Your game needs to be very sharp on such a difficult course," said Clarke, who missed the cut by a stroke last year. "Padraig's game is certainly sharp enough but I think he's going to find it a very difficult experience being here for the first time."

Which would explain why the Dubliner was quietly cursing the weather.