Tour News: In some mindsets, faraway hills can often be greener; and Darren Clarke, who has endured a rather turbulent summer on European fairways, must be hoping that a month's stint on the greenback-laden US Tour - which starts with this week's International tournament in Colorado - will rekindle the winning habit.

Clarke is without a tournament title since the English Open, an event he won in the first week of June of last year, all of 14 months ago.

For a player of his ability and status - he is ranked 18th in the world and, despite his barren spell, has still accumulated sufficient prize money to be eighth in the current European Tour Order of Merit - that is a long time away from the winner's enclosure.

Yet, on his nine appearances on the US Tour this year (the British Open counts), Clarke has played well enough to be placed sixth in the non-members' money list, and also to indicate that his game is increasingly more suited to playing Stateside than on this side of the Atlantic.

On the US Tour, Clarke is ranked number two in all-round driving statistics - only Kenny Perry is ahead of him - and, apart from signing for a wrong score in the third round and being disqualified in his first US Tour event of the season, the Buick Invitational, where he had already made the cut, he has had three top-10 finishes.

Clarke's four-week stint in the US will see him play four big-money events: the International in Denver; next week's US PGA at Oak Hill in Rochester, New York; the WGC-NEC Invitational in Akron, Ohio, and, finally, the inaugural, $5 million Deutsche Bank Open in Boston. In all, there is over $20 million in prize money on offer in the four events - and one of Clarke's aims is to earn enough prize money to qualify for the end-of-season Tour Championship.

As a special temporary member of the US Tour, like Padraig Harrington, Clarke is allowed to play as many tournaments as he likes in America without having to rely on sponsor's invitations.

"It's always been obvious that I like playing in America and I want to compete with the best players in the world on a more regular basis, to test myself," said Clarke, who will take up a full card on the US Tour next season.

By doing that, he sees himself enjoying the best of both worlds, playing equally in America and on his home circuit, the European Tour.

Since Clarke's management company ISM tied-up with American agency, Gaylord, the logistics of playing on the US Tour are relatively seamless and a stronger commitment to the US Tour is something his manager, Chubby Chandler, has viewed as inevitable.

"His coach (Butch Harmon) is based there, his sports psychologist (Bob Rotella) is based there . . . and, very importantly, Darren is very comfortable playing in the United States," he said.

Clarke, who took a week off after the Nissan Irish Open, is part of a strong European challenge in the International - among others playing are Phillip Price, Jose Maria Olazabal, Sergio Garcia, Lee Westwood, Jesper Parnevik and Paul Casey where Rich Beem is the defending champion - and he will be followed to the US over the next two weeks by Harrington and Paul McGinley.

Depending on the arrival of the couple's first child, Harrington intends to play in the US PGA, but not the following week's NEC, while McGinley, who has taken this week off, plays in the US PGA and the NEC.

On the European Tour this week, the inaugural Nordic Open takes place at Simon's Golf Club in Denmark, where Thomas Bjorn will be seeking to continue his hot form of recent weeks which has seen him finish runner-up in the British Open and Irish Open, and there are five Irish players in action.

Gary Murphy, who will seek to take another step towards securing a place in the season-ending Volvo Masters, his main objective now that he has safely secured his card for next season, will be joined in the field by Peter Lawrie, Graeme McDowell, Damien McGrane and Ronan Rafferty.

ORDER OF MERIT - Irish positions (number of tournaments played in brackets) - 3rd, P Harrington (12) €1,140,618; 8th, D Clarke (12) €888,057; 43rd, P McGinley (18) €328,665; 44th, G Murphy (18) €317,828; 47th, P Lawrie (23) €311,331; 73rd, G McDowell (16) €212,486; 147th, D McGrane (10) €73,889; 172nd, R Rafferty (9) €43,231; 212th, P Walton (10) €20,539.

WORLD RANKINGS - Irish positions: 9th, P Harrington; 18th, D Clarke; 145th, P McGinley; 177th, G McDowell; 214th, G Murphy; 258th, P Lawrie; 422nd, D McGrane.