World stage best for Clarke

In purely monetary terms, Darren Clarke's win in the WGC-NEC Invitational in Akron is significant - taking his world-wide earnings for the year to $2,431,653, which is 10th in the global money list - but, in golfing terms, it is far bigger, by  Philip Reid.Golf correspondent

Apart from this latest success - the 14th professional win of his career - bringing a three-year exemption on the US Tour, the temptation to play even more frequently Stateside than originally planned is likely to prove irresistible.

One immediate benefit of Clarke's four-stroke win in the NEC, the second of the season's four world golf championship events, is that he will automatically be invited to play in the season-opening Mercedes Championship on next year's US Tour when, for the first time, he will play with a full card. The 35-year-old from Dungannon plans to play a minimum of 16 tournaments Stateside in 2004 and an equal number on this side of the Atlantic, as he seeks to combine membership of both the US and European Tours.

The win also moved Clarke up to 13th from 17th in the world rankings, his highest position since April 21st 2002. With Padraig Harrington remaining at ninth, it means that two Irishmen are now the top-ranked Europeans in the world with 17th-ranked Sergio Garcia next best. For good measure, Clarke's latest heist from America has pushed him up to second in the European Tour Order of Merit, behind Ernie Els.

This latest win from Clarke, his first since the English Open almost 15 months ago, was an overdue one; yet, ironically, it came a week after he missed the cut at the US PGA. In days gone by, Clarke would have made the journey from Rochester to Akron with a dark mist descending over his head. However, since he started work with the sport psychologist Bob Rotella, he has been transformed into a much calmer individual, and that was evident in his final-round play on Sunday when he shot a closing 67 for 12-under-par 268, four shots clear of runner-up Jonathan Kaye and five ahead of Davis Love.

Clarke has been working on his mental attitude with Rotella - he spent a week in Florida with him last March before the Players Championship and religiously meets up with him whenever he plays in the US - while he has also benefited from an arm brace coach Butch Harmon gave him at the British Open to refine his swing. It stops his right arm from collapsing, making the swing shorter, wider and, according to Clarke, "allegedly more consistent". So, instead of getting down on himself after missing the midway cut by a shot at the PGA, Clarke made the short flight from Rochester to Akron on the Saturday of the PGA but, due to thunderstorms, he put off his preparatory work until the following day.

"Sunday, Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday I prepared as well as I could. I played nine holes each day and spent probably three hours each time playing those nine holes because, as opposed to playing 18 and getting around as fast as I could, I chipped and putted around each green. It's the best I've ever prepared for a tournament, (so) sometimes good things come out of bad things. I was disappointed missing the cut in the PGA but I still looked forward to getting to Akron early."

Indeed, Harmon had looked at his swing during the PGA and felt there wasn't too much wrong with it. "Keep using the brace and you'll be fine," is about all Harmon said to him in the run-up to Akron.

"It's great to see progress not only in my swing, my short game, but from the mental side. It's great to see everything culminate and end up with a win again," insisted Clarke, who remains on in the US this week to play in the inaugural Deutsche Bank Championship in Boston. Clarke only got into the field after world number one Tiger Woods, whose foundation will benefit from the charitable contribution from the event, secured him a sponsor's invite.

Although Clarke admits to being something of an underachiever, the NEC win means he has won every year on tour (at least once) since 1998. As Love, a fellow disciple of Rotella, remarked, "anytime he gets near the lead, he plays very, very well . . . when Darren's on his game, he's one of the best players out here. Sometimes he tries a little bit too hard. We've talked about it. He pushes a little bit too hard sometimes. Instead of letting it happen, he's trying to make it happen." With the victory, the Ulsterman became only the second player to win more than one World Golf Championships event, following Woods, who has seven of the coveted crowns. He is the only European to have won a WGC title, his previous win coming in the Accenture World Matchplay in 2000, when he beat Woods in the final.

"To win another world golf championship event means a lot to me. We have the majors and then the TPC at Sawgrass after that . . . and, after those five tournaments, I think the majority of the guys would pick world golf championships (as next in line)," claimed Clarke.

In securing his first strokeplay win in America, Clarke became the 20th different winner on the US Tour this year - but the first from Europe. "It's great to see so many different players winning, because it means there is so much more depth as opposed to just Tiger winning every week. Everybody loves to see Tiger win the way he plays. He's the best player in the world but there's a lot of other guys can come out and play . . . and when it is your week, it's your week." Clarke had to endure a long wait for it to be his week, but it was a wait that was well and truly worth it. Having played the International, the US PGA and the NEC in America in the past three weeks, he continues the sequence this week in Boston for the Deutsche Bank but, throughout his professional career, he has never managed to follow up a win one week with another the following.