It’s only been a month since Open Champion, Darren Clarke half recognised a ‘Merry Christmas and enjoy the break’ gesture after finishing well down the field in the Asian Tour season-ending Thailand Golf Championship.
However Clarke returns to competition at this week’s European Tour Volvo Champions at Fancourt in South Africa admitting he’s a changed man.
In fact, on his website Clarke boldly has annouced: He’s a “Lean Mean Fighting Machine”.
The Royal St. Goerge’s Open Champion, awarded an OBE in the New Year’s Honours and was runner-up in the BBC Sports Personality of the Year, has been in the gym ahead of this week’s ‘champions only’ tournament near George in South Africa.
Unfortunately for the last five months of 2011 Clarke was a mere shadow of the golfer who brilliantly captured golf’s oldest Major.
“My golf career has been extended somewhat by winning The Open Championship and I just thought that enough is enough and it was time to get myself into better shape,” he said on Europeantour.com
Once the Christmas festivities concluded Clarke began working with Belfast-based fitness expert Jonny Bloomfield, recommended to him by stablemate Lee Westwood’s trainer Steve MacGregor.
“Jonny’s a sports scientist and he’s got me doing all sorts in the gym, having my eyes checked out, nutrition etc,” Clarke said.
“Therefore my alcohol consumption is taking a massive dint… currently down to zero! However, no pain, no gain and I’m very excited about the route that we’re going down.
“It’s a long road, but I will give it my best shot.”
Clarke’s extraordinary win from 111th in the Official World Golf Ranking makes him exempt for The Open Championship until he is 61 and, after thinking his days competing in the Masters Tournament might be over, he will be at Augusta for the next five Aprils.
The man who won there last spring, South African Charl Schwartzel, is his playing partner in the opening round of this week’s tournament – a 35-man no-cut event reserved for last year’s European Tour winners and anyone with ten or more victories on the circuit.
That second category allows in Padraig Harrington, Colin Montgomerie and the Scot’s successor as Ryder Cup captain José María Olazábal.
Montgomerie, now 48, will be playing the first 18 holes with someone who was not even born when he made his European Tour debut in 1986.
That is England’s Tom Lewis, the 21 year old who with an opening 65 shot the lowest-ever round by an amateur in last July’s Open and then three months later won on only his third professional start at the Portugal Masters.
Harrington partners Ernie Els at the start of what is a huge opportunity for both of them to re-ignite their careers.
Els is down to 71st in the rankings, but Harrington has fallen even further to 89th.
Neither will be in next month’s World Golf Championships-Accenture Match Play unless they climb back into the top 64 in the coming four weeks, but the Dubliner does at least know he will be in the Masters Tournament thanks to his more recent Major wins.
