Clarke must raise game to match Lee
Darren Clarke today set himself the target of joining close friend and Ryder Cup team-mate Lee Westwood among the world's top five ranked golfers.
But the Surrey-based Ulsterman will have trouble simply making the top 10 unless he improves a short game that almost cost him victory in the Dimension Data Pro-Am here.
Appropriately, Clarke chose to celebrate his first title of the season with a humble can of lager rather than the traditional bottle of champagne. After carding a course record 63 in the second round on Friday, his approach play suddenly went flat coming to the par five last hole of the tournament when a relatively easy wedge shot to an island green flew low and long into the water.
That was enough to give home hero Retief Goosen a glimmer of hope. But the South African missed a greenside chip for the eagle that might have forced a play-off, and Clarke needed just one putt after his penalty shot to record a winning one under par 71.
His four-round total of 274 was 14 under par, two better than Goosen and countryman Tjaart van der Walt.
Victory was worth a comparatively minor £30,000, small change compared with the £660,000 Clarke banked after out-duelling Tiger Woods in the final of the Andersen Consulting World Champion Match Play in California this time last year. But he insisted: "A win is a win and I'll happily take this one. The majority of my game was very good, but there are a few things I've got to tighten up on.
"This season I want to push into the top five," said Clarke. "But I think my wedge play is going to have to improve slightly!"
Meanwhile, Davis Love III fired a final-round nine-under-par 63 to claim an unlikely victory at the Pebble Beach Pro-Am in California. The 36-year-old American started the closing day back in 14th place on the leaderboard, seven shots adrift of pace setters Olin Browne and Phil Mickelson.
