Trademark cigar protruding from his mouth, Darren Clarke yesterday made the 374yard stroll from tee to elevated green on the sweeping ninth hole of Southern Hills - stopping only to hit two short-iron approach shots - and, in between, relating a story of missed planes, lost passports and precisely the sort of travel preparations that you try to avoid in the days before a US Open championship.
Halfway through his first practice round, and watched by a trailing entourage that included Leeds United manager David O'Leary and video camera-touting Claude Harmon, son of Butch, Clarke looks completely at ease with life. There's even a hint of a grin as he tells the tale of his "nightmare" journey to middle America for what will be his 23rd appearance in a major.
Clarke's problems materialised at the end of last week. Due to fly out on a private jet from Birmingham Airport on Sunday evening after the completion of the English Open, he was unable to join stable-mate Lee Westwood and manager Chubby Chandler on the flight when his passport - which had been sent to the US Embassy in London for a visa, required because they were entering the US on a private plane - went missing.
Instead, Clarke had to collect a duplicate passport on Monday morning. He was booked on two flights: one to Philadelphia, the other to Washington, with private jets waiting at either airport to whisk him on to Tulsa. As things transpired, he received the replacement passport in time to make the first flight - to Philadelphia - and arrived in town on Monday night. "It was all a bit of a nightmare, but I suppose it's just one of those things. The whole plan in getting the private plane was to make travelling a lot easier," he said.
Travelling problems over, Clarke got his first taste of the course yesterday. In the third practice group out, accompanied by Westwood and Thomas Bjorn, the heat of the sun was already evident, even though it was not yet 9 a.m. With temperatures expected to be in the low to mid 90s for much of the tournament, that heat could yet prove to be a factor.
Clarke, whose best previous US Open performance was tied10th in Pinehurst two years ago, comes into the championship on the back of five straight weeks on the circuit. "I'm hitting the ball lovely, exactly the way I want to . . . but I am just not holing putts. I need to be patient, to let things happen. I'm probably forcing it a bit too hard on the greens, having a go at them, because I know I am hitting it well," he explained.
Patience will be an important commodity over the next few days. "It's important to put yourself into position off the tee. If you do that, you're giving yourself a chance. With the greens the way they are, you've got to be in control of the ball flight so that you can control the spin. If you get on the wrong side of these holes, then you're going to really struggle. There'll be occasions when you'll be happy to take two putts from 15 feet."
To demonstrate the slickness, Westwood, Bjorn and Clarke barely touched their putts on the ninth green - which slopes severely from back to front - and, on a number of occasions, the ball actually ran off the putting surface.
An interested viewer of all this was O'Leary, who was invited here to savour a major by Westwood whom he describes as "a closet Leeds fan". "Golf is my hobby and it is fascinating for me to see how other professional sportsmen go about their preparations. I find it all unbelievable. I was in the locker room this morning and in comes Tiger Woods and Davis Love and Colin Montgomerie and it was fantastic to be in their company."
With that, O'Leary, golf fan, was off; trailing down the 10th fairway in the wake of Clarke, Westwood and Bjorn, walking in the same tracks that Woods - in the first group out yesterday - had taken less than half an hour earlier.
