Clarke claims maiden PGA Tour Champions win as Rotella effect kicks in
Darren Clarke. Picture: PGA Tour Champions/Getty Images
Darren Clarke pointed to his old partnership with mental coach Dr Bob Rotella as key as he claimed his first win since The Open in 2011 and his maiden PGA Tour Champions title in Florida last night.
After carding a 10-under 62 to share the overnight lead with Swede Robert Karlsson on 13-under-par in the TimberTech Championship in Boca Raton, the Dungannon man (52) two-putted for birdie on the 18th on The Old Course at Broken Sound to close with a four-under 68 and win by a shot from Bernhard Langer and Jim Furyk on 17-under par.
“Amazing,” said an emotional Clarke, who pocketed $300,000 after Furyk had missed an 18 footer for eagle that would have forced a playoff. “It’s been a grind. It’s been hard work and as we know, these guys are good. These guys are real good. To actually get it done feels great.”
He added” “I’ve had a lot of opportunities the last few years, so it’s great to finally win one. I wouldn’t be working this hard if I didn’t think I could still win.”
He has no plans to repeat his 2011 celebrations as he hopes to launch a concerted fitness campaign having piled on the pounds in recent years.
“Well, the last victory I had, I was drunk for a week, so this time I won’t be,” Clarke said.
Driving the ball brilliantly and putting well — he didn’t have a three-putt all week — Clarke birdied fourth, fifth and seventh but found himself two adrift of Langer when he double-bogeyed the ninth.
However, he birdied the 10th and 11th to get back into the mix and came to the 507-yard 18th needing a birdie to overtake the German, who dropped shots at the 15th and 17th before making birdie at the 507-yard 18th to set the target at 16-under.
After hitting two great shots to the heart of the green and lagging a 35 footer to 18 inches, he watched Furyk miss from 18 feet for eagle that would have forced sudden-death and tapped in for his first win since his maiden Major win at Royal St George’s more than nine years ago, where Rotella was also key.
“Attitude was great,” Clarke said when asked where he found the mental strength to birdie the 10th and 11th. “I had a couple of messages last night from Dr Bob Rotella, who have been working with for a very long time.
“The doc’ told me to hang in there and just accept what comes out. Sometime we push too hard and today I was just patient and waited for things to happen.”
Clarke had incurred a one-stroke penalty on the second hole in his second round 62 for mistakenly preferring his lie and he admitted that after taking six at the ninth, he was regretting that slip up as he drove his buggy down the 10th.
“That certainly crossed my mind,” admitted Clarke, who was playing h]s final event of the season [he misses this week’s season-ending Charles Schwab Championship in Phoenix] as he has been unable to renew his visa due to the Covid-19 pandemic and was playing using the ETSA visa that only allows you to remain in the US for 90 days. “I keep doing these stupid things to myself and I am up on my cart after hitting that snap hook, my only really bad shot of the day, on number nine. You are cruising again and then you've done something stupid again but that’s golf. We try our best, we do our best and sometimes we just make stupid mistakes.”
Pádraig Harrington clinched his best PGA Tour finish for 18 months as Brian Gay struck a blow for the veterans by ending his seven-year drought in the Bermuda Championship.
Six shots behind overnight leader Doc Redman, Harrington (49) stormed up the leaderboard at Port Royal Golf Club, racing to the turn in five-under 31 to get to within a shot of the lead.
But after back-to-back bogeys at the 10th and 11th and another dropped shot at the 14th undid his chances of a first US top 10 finish since 2016, he finished birdie-bogey for a two-under 69 that left him tied 26th ($28,000) on six-under.
It was his best PGA Tour finish since he tied for 12th in the AT&T Byron Nelson in 2019 as Seamus Power also shot 69 to tie for 37th, two shots further back on four-under in his first start for over a month.
“I had it going on the front nine, five-under after seven and it could have been a little better,” said Harrington, who joins Graeme McDowell and Shane Lowry in this week’s Vivint Houston Open.
“Unfortunately, hit a few erratic wedges after that, which I struggled with all week. My driving and my long iron play was good but I didn’t putt as good as I have been, and missed a couple of short ones.”
He finished nine shots behind Texan Gay (48), who birdied the 18th from two feet to shoot 64 and force a playoff with Wyndham Clark on 15-under, then birdied the same hole from 12 feet in sudden-death to claim his fifth PGA Tour win.
"This is absolutely insane," said Gay, whose last win came in the 2013 Humana Challenge. "I've been playing awful since Covid, it's been a struggle, but I've worked hard to get back.
"It's certainly easy to doubt yourself when players are so good and so young—a lot of them are my daughter's age—so it's pretty unbelievable."
Callum Shinkwin. Picture: Getty Images
On the European Tour, Ardglass' Cormac Sharvin clinched his best result for three months in the Aphrodite Hills Cyprus Open.
The Co Down man (28) closed with a five-under 66, finishing the week ranked second for driving accuracy and strokes gained putting as he tied for 28th on 10-under par (€8,367).
He finished ten strokes behind England's Callum Shinkwin (27), who defeated Finland's Kalle Samooja with a birdie at the first playoff hole to win his first European Tour title.
Two shots behind the Finn with two holes to play, Shinkwin birdied the 17th, then knocked in a 54-footer for an eagle three at the last to get to 20-under with a course record 63.
Samooja bravely holed out for a second successive 64 to force sudden-death but he three-putted for par on their return to the 18th after Shinkwin got up and down from a greenside bunker for birdie and a cheque for €162,563.
The victory heralds a return to form for Shinkwin (27), who lost his card in 2018 after losing in a playoff to Rafa Cabrera Bello for the 2017 Aberdeen Standard Investments Scottish Open when needing only a par at the 72nd hole for victory.
Welshman Jamie Donaldson, South African Garrick Higgo and Scot Robert MacIntyre finished two shots out of the playoff places on 18 under par.
