Magnificent. Absolutely magnificent. That’s the only way to describe what Darren Clarke achieved at Royal St. George’s.
Darren Clarke, Open Champion. What a fantastic ring that has to it.
The 150-1 outsider was everybody’s favourite among the Sandwich dunes and his stunning three-shot win was acclaimed as one of the biggest surprises in the long history of golf’s greatest championship.
I still don’t follow why anybody should think it a surprise. There’s nothing that says a 42-year-old shouldn’t drink from the silver claret jug. Why, Tom Watson came within a play-off of winning it at age 59.
I mentioned before that I was one of those who did not believe Darren had a chance. Indeed, this column stated that if the wind blew then it might blow some fortune Darren’s way. It did.
Darren is one of if not the best ball striker I have ever seen and couple that to his ability to hit every shot necessary to do well on links terrain then you have a potent force if everything comes together at the same time.
He has been unlucky in previous Opens, but this was payback time and the little pieces of luck that any Open champion embraces (skipping over a bunker, bouncing left instead of right) came his way. Good luck to him. Few deserve a bit of fortune more than ISM’s longest-serving client.
The win has now made the rest of his career because he will avoid the problems of qualification for all the world’s top tournaments and he will be able to live the life he has been accustomed to.
I could not be happier for him and now we head for the US PGA Championship now in search of an ISM grand slam following Charl Schwartzel, Rory McIlroy and now Darren collecting the first three majors. Just to think we spent 20 years trying for our first and now we’ve had four in a year including the last two Opens.
It would be fantastic if Lee Westwood could complete the job for himself and us in Atlanta next month because nobody deserves a grand slam title more after coming so close so often.
Finally I would also like to offer congratulations to Simon Dyson for finishing top 10 in Sandwich and to Charl who produced another top 20 in a major and there will be plenty more.
