Clarke puts emphasis on patience

When a cordon bleu chief - next assignment the QEII - is creating dishes for you, it's little wonder that Darren Clarke, hardly the most committed dieter that the world has ever seen, is finding readjusting his season's focus from a disappointing British Open to an assault on the season's last major - the US PGA - slightly easier than it otherwise might have been.

Much of Clarke's year had been focused on lifting the Claret Jug at Muirfield. Unfortunately for him, his putting - which has been his Achilles heel for much of the summer - once again deserted him, and a tied-37th place finish left him frustrated and unfulfilled.

In the aftermath of that disappointment in the British Open, Clarke remarked: "I'm hitting really good putts but they're not going in. I just have to be patient and, you know, when they're horse-shoeing out, you have to wait for them to go in. If they start going in on the right week, then . . ."

But he tailed off before supplying further words, knowing that they would only make his frustration grow.

Since then, the Ulsterman has had a relaxing two-week family holiday in Portugal, although his return to competitive duties at the Wales Open (tied-32nd) last weekend brought further despair.

"It's the same old story. I just can't put my finger on it so that I can correct it," he said.

On arrival here at Hazeltine, however, yet another new putter specially designed by Scotty Cameron was waiting for him. The putter was put straight into his bag and maybe, at last, he can find salvation to his putting problems. As everyone knows, practice days are far removed from the real thing, but the indications yesterday were that Clarke was more than happy with the new blade.

"This one is fine and, hopefully, I can give myself a chance," he said.

A chance! That's all that Clarke wants in a championship that, for some reason, has proven hard to conquer. In three of his four previous appearances in the season's final major, he has missed the cut - most recently at Atlanta a year ago. The exception came in 2000 at Valhalla when he finished tied-ninth. However, his first impressions of Hazeltine were favourable.

Yesterday, as he walked off the sixth green, a local shouted down from the top of the bleachers. "How do you like our course?" he asked. The reply was a word of one syllable. "Good," said Clarke. But at least the spectator could go home and tell his friends that Clarke had answered him.

A few holes later, talking on the way from the eighth tee to the well-protected green some 178 yards away, Clarke was more effusive.

"It's a great course," he said, "and it will play fair. The rough is a test but at least you can move it at least 150 yards if you've got a decent lie. It's a more enjoyable course to play than (US Open venue) Bethpage."

Clarke knows better than anyone that his form since his only win of the year, at the English Open in June, has hardly set the world alight. In fact, a tied-20th finish at the Smurfit European Open has been his best position in six starts and the rest have seen him demand places in the 20s and 30s, not what he is accustomed to.

Having flown over by private jet on Sunday night, Clarke decided to relax on Monday but was out on the course bright and early yesterday, with Jose-Maria Olazabal and Lee Westwood making up the three-ball. All in all, it was relaxed preparation for the season's closing major - and the new slim-lined Westwood, who has lost over a stone and a half in the past month after being persuaded to go on a Weight-Watchers diet by first his housekeeper and then his wife, talked of the merits of bringing over their own chef with them from England.

Clarke, Westwood, Paul McGinley and their manager Chubby Chandler are in a house a little over a mile from the course which, apart from allowing them to miss out on the traffic jams coming in from the Twin Cities, has the added benefits of allowing them privacy and to indulge in the cooking of the master chef, an Englishman called Paul Lineker.

"You don't get to being 16 and a half stone without liking every type of food," quipped Westwood of his own larger self, but the players and manager have been treated to Chinese and Italian cuisine thus far, with the promise of a more traditional barbecue to come.

For Clarke, dieting has never come easy. If he had a choice on what to ask the chef to cook up, it would be "a good Irish fry . . . but, as you can surmise, there's not a lot I don't like," he said in good humour, adding: "I'm sort of dieting. Sometimes yes, sometimes no. I'm taking natural health stuff, supplements and what have you. It's just that few beers get in the way unfortunately. Exercising? Does moving furniture count?"

Clarke celebrates his 36th birthday today - and the chef might even be persuaded to bake a cake - but the truth is that the food this week is only a pleasant diversion. What really matters, as it does for any professional golfer, is performing well in a major.

All Clarke needs is for the putts to start dropping instead of horse-shoeing out. Then, maybe, he'll have more to celebrate than merely adding another year onto the engine.