Clarke And Links Golf
Fit Hand In Glove
JOHN HOPKINS
SANDWICH, ENGLAND |
I grew up in a
house adjoining a golf course on one of
the last hills in the glorious Cotswolds.
The course was a wide open one with
blessedly few trees. It was not near the
sea. After only a few visits to seaside
courses I developed a love for links golf
that has not diminished since. In fact, it
has increased. To me, links golf is not just
golf; it’s pure golf. It’s red wine to white
wine, Ying to Yang, opera to ballet. It’s the
way the game began, golf at its most natu-
ral, golf at its most enjoyable.
Clarke plays very good golf on inland
courses, as he demonstrated at the 2006
Ryder Cup at the K Club near Dublin
where he won his three matches. But
when I picture him in my mind’s eye, it is
on a links. To me, he is the quintessen-
tial links golfer, taking a wide stance and
using those powerful shoulders of his to
pick his ball off the turf without disturbing
a blade of grass and sending it low and
powerfully towards its target.
His swing is a bit of a roundhouse
swing, shorter than Dustin Johnson’s
and Miguel Angel Jimenez’s, but there is
no wasted movement in it and no loss of
energy. It’s the purposeful swing of a man
who played a lot of golf when the wind was
doing its best to blow him off his feet.
“We have a lot of links courses in
Ireland,” Clarke said. “Some of the best in
the world, in fact. And I grew up on them.
It’s what I do. I love links courses.”
And how that showed in that round on
Friday, a 68 that took him to 4-under par
and a share of the lead that he never relin-
quished. Watch Clarke on such a day and
you admire the speed at which he plays
and his friendly demeanour and the sight
of him cracking a joke with his playing
partners as they wait on a tee. Most of all,
you admire his shot-making.
Clarke gave another demonstration of
it on this Friday, hitting a cut 7-iron and
taking a daring line over the right hand
greenside bunker on the 18th, coaxing in
Part of Clarke’s personal happiness stems from his engagement to Alison Campbell, a former
Miss Northern Ireland.
a 55-foot putt for an eagle on the seventh,
hitting a 60-yard pitch into the 16th green
that didn’t rise much above head height,
bravely attacking the flagstick on the
eighth when peril was all around. This was
some golf.
He played rugby and golf as a boy. “He
was a good number 8, if a bit slow,” God-
frey Clarke, his father, said. “But he would
always let you know he was there.” So he
concentrated on his golf and was taken to
be given the once-over by John Garner,
the former European Ryder Cup player.
Garner took one look at the cheery-faced
boy and his swing and said, “Don’t change
a thing. You keep going, son.”
And Clarke has done just that ever
since, enhancing the game with his skill,
making friends wherever he goes and
burning the candle at both ends. He has
had his sadness, notably when Heather,
his wife, died of cancer in 2006, but now
he is engaged to be married again, to a
former Miss Northern Ireland. He has
sold his home in Berkshire, England
and returned to live with his two sons in
Northern Ireland. Having found renewed
personal happiness, he is, at 42, playing
some of the best golf of his life.
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