The heady week that fills Clarke's senses

Darren Clarke's love of links golf has been moulded by both upbringing and a natural inclination towards the finer things in life. Clarke is a man who appreciates a certain quality when it comes to wine or cigars, to name but two of his pleasures, and it might be supposed that he would have fallen for links golf even without the advantage of learning the game on courses that included the magnificent Royal Portrush.

To play a links in high summer is to indulge the golfing senses to the fullest. For those who make their living on the professional tours it is a rare treat, although this season they will get a double bill, as the Irish Open returns to Portmarnock next week, providing a second chance to indulge after the main course at The Open this week at Royal St George's.

It is a time of year that Clarke looks forward to more than any other. "I love links golf, I always have done," he said. "It's my favourite form of golf. I love the challenge of it. It is totally different to anything else we do. A links in the summer is a fantastic place to be."

Just as Wimbledon offers the opportunity for the top players of a return to the grass roots of the game, so The Open Championship brings the stars back to how the game started. For Clarke, the challenge is a more intriguing one than is presented most weeks on tour. "Every links course has its own character. Most of the time we play inland courses which are all very similar, target courses. But every links is completely different. Royal St George's is certainly one of the toughest."

Clarke travelled down to Sandwich recently to remind himself of the links that last staged The Open in 1993. "I had forgotten how tough it was," he said. "It is definitely one of the toughest courses on the Open rota. The fairways are very difficult to hit, because of the camber and the shape of them. The ball is always going to run and bounce off them, not all of the fairways but the majority. And when you do hit the fairway, there are a lot of tough second shots."

While some players will have to adjust their games to the challenge that will await them, Clarke is one who finds it easy to slip back into links mode. "Because I grew up playing on a links, I hit a lot of those type of shots week in, week out, like a punched three-wood under the wind.

"It's a mental adjustment more than anything. On a links you can get some extreme bounces, and that is very hard to accept. You can hit a perfect shot in the middle of the fairway and it takes a bounce into the rough. You can think that this is not how golf is meant to be played, but that is links golf.

"It is part of the test of links golf. You have to be very accepting of what happens. I wouldn't say there is a lot of luck involved, but there are an awful lot of good and bad breaks."

While on an inland course, players may plan to negotiate a hole in the same manner, almost to the exact yard, every time they play it, on a links the holes may have to be treated differently depending on the elements. Knowing when to take advantage and when to be more cautious is part of the examination.

"You can't really have a gameplan for the week on a links," Clarke said. "Guys can play a hole in the morning when it is flat calm or a bit downwind, and may have 160 yards and hit a nine-iron. The same hole in the afternoon you might have to hit a five-iron running along the ground to get there. You may have your targets set out at the start of the week, where you want to hit it on each hole, but when the wind changes direction that all goes up in the air.

"You have to adjust continually. The yardage might say 210 yards but you might have to play a nine-iron landing well short of the green. All the great links players have used the slopes and the wind, rather than try and fight them. Fighting the wind is a very dangerous thing to do on a links."

Clarke's best chances to win a Major have been at The Open. He faltered on the final day at Royal Troon in 1997, an experience he puts down to part of the apprenticeship for aspiring champions. Then at Royal Lytham two years ago his putting did not match his game from tee to green. It has been a similar story this season, although a recent session with Harold Swash, the "Putting Doctor", could see everything come together at the right time.

"I'll be disappointed if I never win a Major," the 34-year-old Irishman said, "as long as I give myself more chances to win. Unless I do that, it would be foolish and presumptuous to say I should have won one." Why has he not got into contention more often? "Possibly because in those weeks I have put too much expectation on myself. Sometimes desire gets in the way of what I am trying to do. My desire for success overwhelms my patience."

This is one of the things Clarke has been working on with his sports psychologist, Bob Rotella. But Clarke is not afraid to ask anyone for help. At the Deutsche Bank tournament in May he approached Bernhard Langer. "He just told me, 'Keep doing exactly what you are doing'."

Clarke is well aware that no British or European golfer has won a Major for four years. "I'm not defending it, but we had an unbelievable batch of players for a while, so there were five or six guys contending for a Major, whereas more recently it has been only two or three.

"Sometimes you end up with people who are due to win one. You would have to say that Phil Mickelson is due one, and I have no doubt that he will win at some stage. Monty, with his record, has been due to win one but it hasn't happened. Sometimes things are just meant to be. Look at Phil Golding at the French Open. I've been guilty of pushing to make things happen in the past."

The missing link, perhaps?