Golf PGA Championship:  Some golfers place a lot of faith in statistics, the ones that tell them how far they drive and how accurate they are. How many greens they hit in regulation, and how many putts they take when they get there.

For most of those statistics, nobody is better than Darren Clarke. In fact, he hits the ball longer and straighter than anyone.

Once he reaches the greens, however, it's a different story. For the four days of the PGA Championship at Wentworth, Clarke was ranked first in greens in regulation of the 75 players who survived into the weekend, but was ranked 71st in putting, averaging 31.3 a round.

No wonder the dark clouds that descended around him on the 18th tee in yesterday's final round had more to do with his mood than the actual downpour that came down on the West Course.

Remember, Clarke was the midway lead of this championship, and went into the final two rounds with considerable optimism. It was to prove misplaced. By the start of yesterday's final round, he had slipped from first to tied-eighth, and by the finish he had dropped further, down to tied-14th after a final round 71 left him on 10-under-par 278, all of eight shots behind the pair involved in the play-off.

In truth, it was a real case of what might have been - again - and more frustration for Clarke to deal with.

"It really is very frustrating. Nothing's happening. I can't seem to produce the results to match how I feel I am playing. I'm just not getting the run of the ball and it is so frustrating, probably the most frustrating time I have experienced in my career," he said.

There was one incident yesterday that graphically illustrated Clarke's frustration. On the 15th hole, after he'd made a semblance of rescuing a round that was slipping away by grabbing three birdies in the preceding five holes, Clarke hit what he called "a perfect shot" down the middle of the fairway.

When he walked up to the ball, however, it was in a hole. He punched a five-iron approach, and again thought it was as good as could be. But it went just over the green, and the ball was nestled in grass that was coming back against him. He chipped to six feet, and missed the par putt. "All the momentum just went on me," he said.

Clarke's weekend performance - when he was just one under, compared to being nine-under for the first two days - proved costly, and there was also frustration for his Ryder Cup colleague Paul McGinley, who finished with a closing 72 for six-under-par 282.

Like Clarke, McGinley's problems these days are mainly on the greens. "You've got to put the ball in the net, and I am not doing it. I am doing everything but holing putts - and you're not going to compete unless you do that," he said.

"My long game is good, and generally my golf is good. I'm enjoying it. But the results are not there because my short game is not good enough, and that's the bottom line. I'm hitting good putts . . . like there on the 18th, it can't break and defy gravity but it does. I'm hitting good putts but I am obviously not reading them properly and I am going to spend the next couple of days reading putts."

Ronan Rafferty's expectations these days are not quite as high as either Clarke's or McGinley's, so there was a measure of satisfaction in his closing round 69 which moved him to six-under-par 282. "I've played so little and so badly that you never really expect to play the weekends, so this is quite good."