Clarke not lacking in effort

THE ORDER has shifted, but Darren Clarke is not one to believe it will always stay that way. Why shouldn’t life begin at 40? Yesterday, a half an hour after noon, the black-shirted Ulsterman took his place in a four-ball on the first tee at Bethpage.

Where once he and Adam Scott and Lee Westwood would have been the spotlight, this time those leaning over the metal barriers were more intent on watching Rory McIlroy’s driver wrap itself around his body at the finish of a smooth, fast backswing. Clarke kept as close a watch as anyone as the young protégé let loose.

Yet, the fact that Clarke is here at the US Open is a testament to his perseverance. Indeed, if anyone had wandered around the rear of the clubhouse yesterday morning, they’d have witnessed him hard at work on the putting green. Two men watched his every move. One of them was Dr Bob Rotella, the other was his new caddie, Eddie Gardino, an Italian-Argentinian who caddied for Angel Cabrera when he won the 2007 US Open at Oakmont.

Gardino’s other claim to fame was that he was a contestant on the US television reality golf show, The Big Break. These days, it is Clarke who is looking for a break that many believe he deserves. The past few seasons have had more ups and downs than a rollercoaster ride, his world ranking falling to a low of 225th at the end of 2007 only for two wins on the PGA European Tour last year to lift him back to 61st (tantalisingly close to that cherished top-50 place) before falling back to his current position of 101st. His disappointing season to date is reflected in his 119th position on the European Tour’s moneylist.

But they are just numbers, and Clarke – who spent the weekend preparing for this season’s second major by playing twice at Pine Valley in Pennsylvania, a course he considers “the best in the world” – is now ready to let his clubs do the talking at Bethpage where, in 2002, he finished tied-24th.

“My game’s fine, I keep telling you . . . I just can’t quite score. I’m not holing anything to save (pars), not holing anything to make birdies,” remarked Clarke. “I probably overstepped the limits (in practice), worked too much. I’ve been working, working, working all the time. I wanted to perform so much that I was working too hard to try and do it. I’m back into the mentality where I’m hard on myself again because I’m working so hard and not getting any results, which is very frustating.”

Which is where Rotella has come in. What has Dr Bob been telling him? “That I’m an idiot. He’s been saying, ‘just go and play, you’re forcing it too much’. He’s right. I’m 40 and I should know better. It’s because I want to play so well that I am pushing myself into a corner. Sometimes you can only see it from other people looking in from the outside. I’m doing all the things I should be doing to play well and it’s not happening . . . so, I have to back off a little bit and spend more time on chipping and putting as opposed to doing everything else.”

So, what goals can a player who has put the work in but failed to reproduce it on the golf course set for a week like this on one of the toughest courses in the world? “I don’t know. My tee to green game is probably exactly where I’d want it to be. I’ve got no qualms with the way I’m hitting the ball. I’m just not scoring. I’ll keep on going and hopefully I’ll shoot a good score and that’ll be me off and running.”

Of his last appearance here in 2002, Clarke’s most vivid memory was teeing off at 7.20am on the Thursday morning of the first round. His group, which also featured Tiger Woods and Chris DiMarco, started on the 10th. “Tiger flushed it, 30 yards into the fairway. I hit it pretty solid, 20 yards on. Then, Chris flushed it and came up 20 yards short of the fairway in that rough. That was the message for the week. It was just brutal.”

This time around, the USGA’s course set-up at Bethpage Black is more benign. For instance, the rough on the 10th has been cut back some 40 yards compared to what it was in 2002 so that all players can reach the fairway.

And Clarke believes that a weekend at Pine Valley has sharpened his game and got his competitive juices flowing. “There’s no tougher course than Pine Valley. It’s the ultimate test of golf without being stupid. The hardest but fairest,” he observed, adding: “It was the perfect preparation.”

While Clarke occupied his weekend by playing Pine Valley, Pádraig Harrington had moved on to Bethpage for practice rounds after missing the cut in the St Jude Classic in Memphis where Graeme McDowell shot Sunday’s low round 63 to finish in tied-seventh, behind winner Brian Gay.

Gay was unstoppable as he continued his dominance of the event for the fourth round in succession, running out a five-shot winner at 18 under for the week and sealing his ticket to this week’s US Open.

Harrington, meanwhile, sought to look on the bright side after yet another missed cut, his fourth in the last five outings on tour. “It’s poor in terms of confidence but it’s good in terms of preparation,” said the Dubliner.

The men’s and women’s US Opens in 2014 will be played in consecutive weeks on the number two course at Pinehurst Resort and Country Club.“The ability to provide women golfers with the opportunity to compete in a championship setting on the same course, under similar conditions, as their male counterparts is certainly unique to the USGA,” Barbara Douglas, chairman of the USGA women’s committee, said yesterday.

The men’s edition will be held on June 12th-15th, with the women’s championship staged a week later.