Some things are best left to the imagination, and Butch Harmon wearing a Lycra suit zooming down a snowcap in a bobsleigh is one of them.
Still, when Darren Clarke phoned his coach on the eve of his second round, just before Harmon's planned kamikaze run down the Olympic track in Salt Lake City, enough sanity prevailed for the two to conduct a productive conversation about the perceived glitches in the player's swing.
Yesterday, putting those technical suggestions to good use, Clarke added a 68 to his opening round 67 for a midway total of nine-under-par 135, which gave him a share of the lead - with his Ryder Cup colleague Phillip Price - in the Smurfit European Open at The K Club.
For Padraig Harrington, however, life wasn't quite so comfortable; the world number eight was forced to hole a 25-foot birdie putt from off the green on his last hole simply to survive the cut, which fell on two-over par.
On a grey, overcast day, with just a gentle breeze to accentuate the challenge for the players chasing the top prize of €481,245, scores varied sharply between the outrageously good and the horrifically bad.
Charl Schwartzel, a South African teenager in his rookie year on tour, produced a course record 64, which moved him into tied-third with Scotsman Alastair Forsyth, a shot behind the joint-leaders.
The horrific was supplied by, among others, Emanuele Canonica, who was one those whose scores soared into the 80s, in his case an 87.
All in all, it was a good day's work for Clarke, who started off by sinking a 40-footer for birdie on his first hole, the 10th. On Thursday evening, after finishing his first round, Clarke phoned Harmon, as he tends to do during tournaments when he believes his coach is watching on television in the US.
So it was he was surprised to discover Harmon was preparing to get into a four-man bob in Utah.
"Butch hadn't watched anything on television," explained Clarke, "but he had been following things on the Internet. He was able to tell me straight away what I was doing, which is what we've been working on . . . like getting my shoulder behind the ball and keeping my right hand as far away from my head at the top of the back swing as I can."
Clarke still wasn't entirely happy with his ball-striking yesterday, but the difference is he feels more comfortable with his putting. His recent exchange with Harold Swash, known as the "putting doctor", has, as Clarke put it, "established a more stable base", with a wider stance and a weaker grip.
The end result is he is making more putts and missing fewer ones.
This is a course on which Clarke is very much at home.Before it was tweaked and lengthened, he once went around in 60 shots - one of the most amazing rounds on the European Tour - and he also won this title here in 2001. Given his affinity for the course, he is of the opinion that the Ryder Cup when it comes here in 2006 should be played on the North Course, as it is now known.
"I like this golf course, and that goes without saying. I think any bit of local knowledge that helps give us a fair advantage in the Ryder Cup can make a huge difference. Because we all know this course, I'd like to stay here (rather than the South Course)," said Clarke.
Clarke is on the PGA European Tour's players' committee and would expect to hear about any proposed change. "I would hope to be asked if it came before us," he admitted.
Of more immediate concern, though, is his quest to claim the title and so end a barren spell that stretches back to his English Open win 13 months ago. "Winning any week would be fantastic, but to do it at home again would be really fantastic," he claimed.
The battle to take the title, though, is likely to be hard-fought, as you'd expect. Of the 79 players to made the cut, 39 of them are under par - and 16 are within five shots of Clarke and Price. The Welshman claimed he "scrambled very well" in producing his round of 69. "To shoot that score playing so scrappily is a real bonus," said Price.
But there are others lurking, not only Forsyth and Schwartzel a shot behind, but also Mark McNulty - who suffered a double-bogey on his penultimate hole when he pulled his tee-shot into the Liffey - Andrew Coltart and Eduardo Romero, who head into the weekend on seven-under.
In all, six Irish players survived the cut - Clarke (-9), Gary Murphy (-2), Graeme McDowell (-2), Paul McGinley (+1), Damien McGrane (+1) and Harrington (+2) - and, overall, it was a day for fortitude. Colin Montgomerie started out bogey-double bogey and didn't have a par until the eighth hole in a roller-coaster round before finishing with a 71 for five-under.
However, most sighs of relief from those in the gallery greeted Harrington's nail-biting effort. When the Dubliner bogeyed the 17th, moving to three-over, and then put his drive into the fairway bunker at the corner of the dogleg on the 18th, the signs looked ominous. But he played out up the fairway, hit a sandwedge approach over the flag to 25 feet and holed the putt.
"I don't think I can win from here," admitted Harrington, "but I am looking forward to playing two good rounds of golf for my own satisfaction."
For Clarke, you suspect, nothing other than victory will bring any kind of satisfaction.
