Quick exit and early return for Clarke

CADDIE'S ROLE:Early morning in the clubhouse on Saturday and everyone was happy to have made the cut

EVERYONE WHO had made the trek back from the remote Jeju Island in Korea the previous week was visibly disoriented on Tuesday last at the Royal Seville golf course. As the temperature soared into the high 30s, it was a stark contrast to the nearer freezing weather we had to endure in north-east Asia and its unseasonably cold April.

For those of us alert enough on our approach to Seville airport, this southern part of Spain never looked so green. In a confused state you could have been forgiven for thinking that you were landing in a north European country with the patchwork of lush fields below.

However, the heat on our arrival didn’t match the landscape. There are water reserves that should last Andalucia for three years according to the greens’ staff at the immaculately presented Real Club de Golf de Sevilla.

If the verdant condition of the course was anything to go by those reserves might not last quite so long. Despite the bone-dry weather for the tournament, the three grades of rough adorning the pristine fairways never dried out throughout the day. The course had benefited immensely from the wet winter.

The course which was redesigned by Jose Maria Olazabal earlier this decade, is arguably the best course in Spain from a design and condition point of view. The links-style course outside Valencia, El Saler, may well be a better course but we have never seen it in pristine condition.

The Seville track is not a particularly long one, but it is cleverly laid out and is a testament to the understanding that Jose Maria had for designing a challenging and fair golf course.

Indeed, if you were contemplating which course to play in Spain I would strongly recommend Royal Seville as soon as the greenkeepers give the rough an extensive trim after the tournament. The city, the life, the people and the food make the fourth biggest city in Spain a real Iberian sensation for the visitor.

For those of us who had battled to make the particularly unpredictable cut last Friday, there was the usual degree of weekend uncertainty. You can usually tell a player’s score by how he walks from the scorer’s tent towards the clubhouse. The bustling stride with a protruding bottom lip tends to signify a charge for the locker-room to clear the locker, pack the travel bag and head for the airport.

Much like Darren Clarke did as he finished on level par early on Friday afternoon. He made some quick calculations at the computer in the scorers’ tent and decided the cut would be one under par and the afternoon flight to Heathrow was too convenient to wait in situ and see if those on level par would play the weekend.

Such is the urgency for those who have played the tour for long enough, spending an unnecessary night away from home is not an option. It turned out to be an inconvenient and bad call by Darren who realised by the time he got home on Friday evening and was eating his dinner that he had actually made the cut. The options were not to play the weekend or hire a private jet to take him back down to Andalucia for the final two rounds of the Open de Espana.

The 6.15am Saturday bus from the caddies’ hotel in the centre of Seville can sometimes be a worthwhile experience. The idle banter and camaraderie that comes with having to endure the minor hardship of an early rise, while much of Seville were either snoozing peacefully or seemingly making their way home from the city’s night-spots in the dark early hours of Saturday morning, can be entertaining.

As the sun rose over the lush golf course, us early risers realised we were happy we were here to have another go at bringing in a respectable weekend score. The fresh clear morning air and the prospect of another day’s competitive golf brought an early morning sense of bonhomie.

Darren was remarkably cheerful given the events of the previous day and the hours sleep that he had as a result.

Colin Montgomerie observed that the number on his locker was 71 and he had just shot two 71s and hoped that he hadn’t got up early to repeat the same last Saturday.

Ricardo Gonzalez, with whom we had played the first two rounds, followed a sublime 65 on Thursday with a ridiculous 79 on Friday which left him thinking he had missed the cut for a few hours that evening.

The reprieve of having a chance to make up for the previous day’s disaster filled the amiable Argentine with hope last Saturday morning as he laughed at his 14-shot swing in under 24 hours. He was even more amused when a voice from over the lockers told him Tiger Woods had also shot 79 in his second round at Quail Hollow but didn’t manage to make the cut.

Miguel Angel Jimenez breezed into the chatter of the locker room with the aroma of his early morning Cohiba cigar trailing in his wake, reminding us cut- scrapers that legends resort to clawing through the cut mark too. And, by the sounds of them early on a Saturday morning in the Real Club de Golf de Sevilla, they were very happy they had done so.