THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
ADARE, Ireland — Darren Clarke is determined to get back onto Europe’s Ryder Cup team.
Clarke played in the 2006 Ryder Cup just six weeks after his wife, Heather, died of cancer. He won all three of his matches at The K Club, helping Europe keep the trophy by a record-tying 18-1/2 points to 9-1/2 margin over the Americans.
Clarke’s main target this year is to be on the team again at Valhalla in September. To do that, he is skipping the U.S. Open at Torrey Pines in California next month.
He is playing in the Austrian Open the previous week and feels he wouldn’t be prepared for Torrey Pines after the long trip.
"My preparations wouldn’t be what I would want them to be for a major championship," he said Wednesday on the eve of the Irish Open at Adare Manor near Limerick.
Clarke, who has won 10 European Tour events, including two World Golf Championship tournaments, ended a prolonged slump by winning the Asian Open in Shanghai three weeks ago.
He almost threw it away, making bogeys at the 16th and 17th holes before sinking a 40-foot putt for birdie at the last to beat Dutchman Robert-Jan Derksen by a stroke.
"I made it more difficult than I should have but I got it done in the end. It was great to get back in the winner’s circle and it meant an awful lot to me," he said. "Now I want to do it again. I probably need to win another couple of times (to make the Ryder Cup team)."
This is the first of four successive events for Clarke, one of four Irish or Northern Irish winners of European Tour tournaments over the last 10 weeks. The others were Graeme McDowell, Damien McGrane and Peter Lawrie.
Another, British Open champion Padraig Harrington, is defending the title. Other big names here include Lee Westwood and Colin Montgomerie.
Clarke, whose Asian Open victory was his first European Tour win in five years, never doubted that he would succeed again.
"I can play a little bit," he said. "It just took me a lot longer than I thought it would. If I had doubted it, I wouldn’t have spent the time I was doing working on things. I wouldn’t have been in the gym or hitting balls."
Clarke, 39, said winning again took so long "because my head was getting in the way."
"I couldn’t quite focus on what I was trying to do and I was making silly mistakes," he said.
Clarke is a single parent with two sons, Conor and Tyrone.
"It has taken a while to get used to but the boys are happy and I’m a lot happier than I have been some some time," he said. "It’s life moving onwards, that’s all."
Clarke feels his game is almost good enough to win anywhere, anytime.
"I’m very close to playing the way I want to play," he said. "Maybe a little consistency on the greens is probably what’s not quite right at the moment."