Golf: Darren Clarke wins Open title

DARREN CLARKE last night dedicated his Open championship victory to his children after paying tribute to his wife who succumbed to cancer five years ago.

“This is for the kids,” he said after winning the Claret Jug at Royal St George’s by three shots from Phil Mickelson and Dustin Johnson of America.

The 42-year-old also said in reference to his late wife, Heather: “In terms of what is going through my heart, there’s obviously somebody who is watching down from up above here and I know she would be very proud of me. She’d probably be saying: ‘I told you so’.

Further dropped shots for Mickelson at 14, 15 and 16 took the Californian out of the equation, while big-hitting Dustin Johnson, looking to exorcise the demons of last summer when going out in the final group in the US Open and US PGA only to have something of a Major catastrophe, effectively sealed his fate on the 14th, putting his second shot out of bounds in rattling up a double-bogey seven.

Mickelson’s Jekyll and Hyde round was best summed up when he thumped his second shot at the 18th into the fifth row of the grandstand.

From then on in it was Clarke’s to lose, holding a four-shot buffer with four to play.

Though the sight of Thomas Bjorn on a neighbouring fairway would press home that nothing can be taken for granted. The great Dane, in 2003 at Sandwich, had a three-shot cushion with four to play only to have a bunker meltdown for Ben Curtis to pip him at the post.

But there was no lightning striking twice as Clarke, seeing his rivals fall by the wayside, marched on triumphantly with par excellence as his seven under score, secured with that eagle on the seventh, remained intact for the next nine holes before a short missed putt at the 17th saw his lead down to three shots.

Any last hole wobbles were soon dispelled with an arrow-straight drive and a no-frills second to the fringe of the green. Three putts didn’t really matter as his five under score was three better than Mickelson and Johnson, who tied for second.

It was Clarke’s 20th crack at getting his hands on the Claret Jug, beating Nick Price’s record of playing in 15 Opens before his Open success and Clark had not had a top-10 finish in a Major since he was third at Royal Lytham a decade ago.

And for the man now back home living in Portrush – after meeting and getting engaged in December to former Miss Northern Ireland Alison Campbell in a blind date set up by former US Open champion and countryman Graeme McDowell – life could not come any sweeter after the tragedy of losing his wife Heather to breast cancer at the age of 39 back in August 2006.

“To sit here and talk in front of you guys with this trophy being the Open champion just means the world to me,” said Clarke, revealing text messages from Tiger Woods and McIlroy on Saturday night helped spur him on for the final day.

“In terms of what’s going through my heart, there’s obviously somebody who is watching down from up there above and I know she’d be very proud of me. She’d probably be saying, ‘I told you so’.