EUROPEAN TOUR NEWS: DARREN CLARKE set his sights on re-joining Europe's Ryder Cup team after emerging from months in the wilderness with an emotionally-charged victory at the Asian Open yesterday.

The 39-year-old Ulsterman ended a five-year European Tour victory drought when he won the tournament at the Tomson Golf Club in Shanghai by one stroke from Dutchman Robert-Jan Derksen.

Clarke, who lost his wife Heather in 2006 after a long battle with cancer and is ranked 236 having once been as high as ninth, declared himself re-invigorated.

"If anything, my win today has given me renewed vigour to carry on and keep working, because I want more of this," said a delighted Clarke said.

"My focus is to keep playing golf as much as I can and I do desperately want to be at Valhalla so we will see," said Clarke, whose last win came in Japan at the Taiheyo Masters in 2005.

Europe travel to the US in September to defend the Ryder Cup at the Valhalla Golf Club in Louisville, Kentucky.

Clarke, whose record includes 11 European titles and a 2000 WGC-Accenture Matchplay final victory over world number one Tiger Woods, helped Europe to an emotional victory weeks after his wife's death at the Ryder Cup in Ireland in September 2006.

There have been few other highlights in a year-and-a-half recovery.

A long battle to find form saw Clarke changing shafts in his irons and hiring biomechanics experts in a bid to cure wobbly putting on the greens. But making the cut still proved elusive.

"It had been frustrating," Clarke said. "It is like anybody's job where if you work and work and work on it but don't see any tangible results it gets very difficult.

"That's what has happened to me. I have been working away and not seeing the results."

After finding it hard to watch the US Masters and other invitational events on television, Clarke said: "I have spent a long period of time in that top 50 and I have dropped out of that list for obvious reasons.

"I am not used to sitting out and watching these events. The reason I practice and play and put in the time is so I can compete at the top level and I want to be back in the top 50 again.

"It was always going to be a difficult hurdle for me to get back to winning ways after Heather had passed away," said Clarke.

"My mind started going from about 14 onwards and I lost my concentration and started thinking about Heather and the boys and if you can't keep your concentration for the whole way round you make mistakes.

"But on the last hole I gathered myself and hit a good putt and luckily it went in.

"This is the very top. I have been working harder than I have ever worked before on all aspects of my game.

"I have been putting in nine-hour days and it is nice to see it pay off.

"It is a big mental hurdle that I have overcome."

And the Ulsterman admitted it has been a frustrating wait to return to winning ways on the European Tour.

The win in Shanghai was certainly not a comfortable one as he was challenged all the way by playing partner Derksen.

The Dutchman had double-bogeyed the par-three 14th after he chipped into the water and though Clarke bogeyed the same hole he still moved two strokes clear at the top of the leaderboard.

From then it seemed the win would be a formality for Clarke but bogeys on the 16th and 17th meant he went to the last level par with Derksen.

Despite being denied a third European Tour victory, Derksen refused to dwell on his defeat and instead paid tribute to Clarke.

"It was a great match," said the 34-year-old.

"In the beginning I thought it could be between the two of us as the wind was up and it would be difficult for the others to catch.

"He is a great winner.

"My up and down on the 18 was very good and I don't make that quite often but then Darren holed a good putt and that's his luck and it is his day."

England's Robert Dinwiddie shot a two-over-par 74 to secure a share of third place alongside Francesco Molinari and Lin Wen-tang.

World number 13 Henrik Stenson, the highest-ranked player at the tournament, produced a great final round to return to the clubhouse with a four-under-par 68 and finish sixth.