THERE WAS a holiday air in the seaside resort of Portrush, Co Antrim, as crowds of supporters waited to welcome home British Open champion Darren Clarke to his adopted golf club, Royal Portrush.
In contrast to the laughs, whoops and cheers outside, the atmosphere inside the clubhouse, with its sober wood panelling and tasteful plastic flower arrangements, was calm.
Men in dark blazers with silk handkerchiefs peeking out of their top pockets spoke urgently into mobile phones. On the balcony, well-groomed women, their hair immobile in the stiff Atlantic breeze, craned their necks to gaze expectantly down the drive. The man of the moment was on his way.
There was a certain panache to his arrival: Clarke (42) drew up in a car with blacked-out windows. He was lent some glamour by his fiancee, former Miss Northern Ireland Alison Campbell, and his two blond tousle-haired sons, Conor (10) and Tyrone (12).
Although dressed up for the occasion in a grey pinstripe suit and a pair of dazzlingly shiny black shoes, Clarke’s public appeal lies mainly in his defiant ordinariness.
A little rotund and fond of life’s pleasures, such as a fine cigar, he is the antithesis of the obsessively honed athlete.
Looking suntanned and relaxed, and clearly in a genial frame of mind, Clarke said that since he had won the championship, he had been “falling asleep with a mixture of tiredness, excitement and, er, beverages. There’s been quite a bit of Guinness consumed.”
Asked why he was such a popular winner, he added: “It’s probably because I like a pint and a smoke and I don’t go the gym at 6am. People identify with that.”
Clarke presented his winner’s gold medal to the captain of Royal Portrush, Philip Tweedie, with Deputy First Minister Martin McGuinness looking on. The medal will now be displayed in the clubhouse alongside that won in 1947 by Fred Daly, the only other Northern Ireland winner of the Open.
Gesturing to the famous Claret Jug on the table beside him, Clarke said: “It’s been my goal and my burning desire throughout my career to win this trophy. It hasn’t quite sunk in yet that my name is on it.”
Attributing his success to a new-found ability to take life as it comes – “I’m more relaxed than I’ve ever been, more accepting of what’s going on” – Clarke said that the practice of “unconscious putting” had helped him. “Sometimes your thoughts can get in your own way, so you have to not think – just look and react”.
Clarke, who is originally from Dungannon, also voiced his support for the Open to return to Royal Portrush for the first time since 1951.
“Right now, with Rory McIlroy, G-Mac [Graeme McDowell] and myself doing so well, it would be wonderful to bring it here.
“Seeing rioting on the streets of Belfast can give people a one-sided view of this place, but 99 per cent of the people you meet here are genuine, honest, decent people. It’s a very welcoming little country.”
Afterwards, Clarke and his family stepped out on to the clubhouse balcony to show the Claret Jug to the cheering fans below. Inside, alongside the laden trophy cabinets and signed photographs of Prince Andrew and Prince Philip, the club members passed the gold medal among themselves.
“That’s the closest we’ll ever get to a major,” said one man ruefully to another.
Asked how he felt about the signs on all the roads into Portrush proclaiming the town to be the home of Graeme McDowell, Clarke said he had no envy of the man who was the first major champion from the area, but he hoped the authorities might “find space for another little sign”.
It can only be a matter of time.