2011
BRITISH
OPEN
Relaxed and in his
element after a
conversation with
Rotella, Clarke won in
his 20th British Open.
n a quirky old links
where the fairways have
goiter and the wind
blows so hard ferrets
can fly, just down the
beach from where both the
Vikings and Viagra invaded
England, a gray-haired Ulster-
man built like a barrel of Guinness
took everything America and Mother Nature could throw
at him and walked away with a pint, a cigarette and the
claret jug. It shouldn’t have come as such a surprise. Life
has hit Darren Clarke a lot harder.
At 42 and playing in his 20th British Open, Clarke withstood the early charge of Phil Mickelson and the late move
of Dustin Johnson to win his twilight major by three shots
over the pair of U.S. golfing and gambling buddies who, it
became clear on the back nine, had about as much chance as
Goldfinger did against Bond. That fictional match was set on
Royal St. George’s too, but no trickery was required in Clarke
versus America. All the Irishman needed was his birthright
on a links and a good talking-to from Dr. Bob Rotella.
“Darren’s very talented at golf, but he forgets that a
lot,” said Rotella. “He starts working hard on his swing
and his putting stroke and gets all messed up and can’t
play. He starts trying to putt correctly. I said, ‘You know,
Darren, will you admit that you’re already a great putter?
You knew how to putt when you were 12 years old. Stop
pretending you’re not a great putter.’ All the frustrations
in the rest [of his game] comes out of the frustration with
his putting, which he totally admits. First thing you do, if
you’re looking for some way to make every putt you look
at, if you’re not going to be happy unless you make it, then
you’ll never be happy. So you have to really get into, ‘If I go
unconscious and just see where I want it to go and hit it,
everything will take care of itself.’ I’m trying to get him to
realize that’s how he does everything else in his life, why
is he trying to make this into a science? A lot of this is just
trying to get him to be unconscious with it, trust that his
subconscious is way smarter than his conscious brain.”
Clarke carried a one-shot lead over Johnson into
Sunday. He spent Saturday night at the house his agent,
Andrew (Chubby) Chandler, had rented, had a couple of
pints, a couple of glasses of red wine and a good curry. He
got text messages from Tiger Woods and Rory McIlroy.
Sunday was going to be di;cult but nothing to compare
