Golfing Disasters Part 24With Darren Clarke it tends to be all duck or no dinner. The Ulsterman has won twice in America and both triumphs have come in world championship events. Not for Darren a mundane victory in the Quad Cities Open. Instead, Clarke dusted top seed Tiger Woods 4 and 3 in the 36-hole final of the 2000 Accenture Matchplay and he also swept to a four-shot win in the 2003 NEC Invitational.
Somewhere between Quad Cities and the world championships in terms of prestige and quality of field lies the MCI Heritage which has settled into the slot the week after the Masters on the PGA Tour. Midway through this year's event a Clarke victory looked a near certainty. He plays the tournament partly because he loves the course at Hilton Head and he seemed to have it mastered with a pair of 65s in the opening rounds.
None of the big five were around to threaten Clarke. In fact his chief rival all week was the Australian Peter Lonard, who doesn't have a great reputation for closing the deal.
Coming into the Heritage he was winless in 99 PGA Tour events and admitted that he had "copped some spray" in the Australian press for his lack of overseas victories.
There certainly wasn't much wrong with his start. Lonard sandwiched 11 birdies between bogies on the first and last holes and signed for a nine-under par 62. Clarke's opening 65 was overshadowed but when he repeated the dose on day two he had built a six-shot lead over Lonard (74) and Patrick Sheehan (66, 70).
"I like those tap-in birdie putts," smiled Clarke whose brilliant iron play had set up three in a row from under three feet. Not since Nick Price in the 1994 Canadian Open had a player lost a six-shot halfway lead on the PGA Tour but Clarke was about to change that.
Dressed in fluorescent fuchsia, Clarke withered with four bogies in the first seven holes on Saturday for a 73. Lonard rebounded with a 66 and so after 54 holes it was Lonard -11, Clarke -10. It was a good job for both of them that Rod Pampling was next best on six under as in the final round it wasn't so much a case of whether Lonard or Clarke was more robust, more a case of who crumpled least.
Clarke birdied four of the first five holes to move four ahead. Was he back in the groove of the first two days? Not for long. He bogied the sixth and seventh and drove in a pond for a double bogey on the eighth which Lonard birdied to regain the lead.
In the next nine holes Clarke threw in two birdies, two bogies and a double. Lonard made three bogies and so they stood on the final tee level once again. Lonard found the middle of the green in two.
From the fairway, Clarke took on the tightly cut flag with an eight-iron which wasn't the wisest thing to do given the way he was hitting the ball. He tugged it left into muddy scrub where he found four balls, all in unplayable lies, but not his own. Eventually he had to walk back down the fairway and play another.
His third double bogey of the afternoon meant he was nine over for the final thirteen holes and six over for the last six. Lonard was home and dry.
"I got off to a great start, thought everything was going well and just started making some bad swings. It went from bad to worse. I can't believe what I've done," reflected Clarke.
"Obviously I didn't win the way I wanted to win it today," admitted Lonard.
"But at the end of the day if you win, you win. I'll be able to sleep all right tonight." Clarke may have been having nightmares.
