The bounce of the ball saves Clarke

Darren Clarke skipped up the steps to the seventh tee beaming, took one look at playing partner Costantino Rocca and laughed: "Go on, say it. I'm a lucky, lucky b******." The Italian smiled, shook his head and reached into his bag to uncover his three-wood. Any further comment would have been superfluous.

Clarke's self-deprecating candour was a reference to the previous hole. An excellent tee-shot left him in the middle of the fairway, but he turned his six-iron over slightly and, holding the club in his left hand, signalled that the ball was going left. As those in the projected landing area began to duck, the ball bounced once, careered into a tree, rebounded off the trunk and came to rest eight feet from the pin.

Back up the fairway, the big Dungannon man was speechless, his broad smile and shake of the head an acknowledgement of his good fortune. He had regained his composure when his caddie, Billy Foster, ventured: "That was a very good shot." Clarke's face creased once again.

When the Irishman rolled in the birdie putt, his third in successive holes, one sensed that it was going to be his day.

If he needed a check to his exuberance, he received it on the next, the par four seventh, known as Michael's Favourite. He blocked his three-wood into the water on the right. Occasionally in the past the red mist would have descended, but this time he merely sighed, muttering, "Darren, Darren, Darren".

Clarke would later concede: "I received an outrageous bit of good fortune on the sixth. I should have been looking at a five and ended up making a three. I probably felt a bit guilty, and that's why I leaked it out to the right into the water at the seventh."

It would prove the only aberration en route to a magnificent triumph.

Roared on by a huge gallery, Clarke began solidly, parring the first three holes: he hit two fairways from two and two greens from three attempts. His only blip came when his ball came to rest on the apron of the green at the first hole. Even then he struck the back of the hole from 30 feet.

It all changed when the Dungannon golfer divested himself of his sweater on the fourth and lit up one of his trademark, mammoth cigars: he then literally and metaphorically began to smoke. He hammered a driver and five-wood into the bunker on the left of the green, conjured a superb sand shot to three feet and drained the putt for birdie.

He dipped further under the card at the next, hitting a drive and six-iron to 12 feet, and then his carefully chosen "tree-iron" sustained the momentum.

The bogey on the seventh following a watery tee-shot guarantees Michael's Favourite won't be Darren's. But a glorious eight-iron to 10 feet at the eighth and a seven-iron second shot to a similar distance at the next yielded a brace of birdies.

As if he required further evidence that it would be his day, his tournament, his tee-shot on nine had slammed into a tree on the left and plopped gently into the centre of the fairway.

Clarke's army had grown in number and there was no time to stop at the burger van to the right of the 10th tee for any sustenance. The Irishman would subsequently make reference to the fact that he had never felt in such control of both his emotions and game.

It was patently obvious from his body language and the rapport with his caddie, Foster. He credited the Manchester native with tempering his enthusiasm at the par five 16th, a hole that had proved calamitous a couple of years previously. He wanted to go for the green in two with a three-wood.

"Yeah, I did, but Billy wouldn't let me. I kept reaching for it and he kept saying 'no, you're not having it', slapping my hand and not letting me take it. He made the right call at the right time and that's why he is so good."

Clarke followed his drive with a brace of nine-irons and then holed a 12-foot putt for birdie from the apron: he had earlier birdied the 11th, following a stunning eight-iron to four feet.

All that was left was to safely negotiate the drive on the 17th (the previous day he had seen his tee-shot plunge into the Liffey) and then acknowledge the rapturous reception from the masses that thronged the 18th fairway and green.

"The roars and the support I had followed on from last week. They were fantastic.

"I gave myself a better chance to win here and I did it."

The demons of two years ago had been well and truly exorcised and the scene of his lowest moment in golf now staged his greatest triumph.