Ten birdies in a round tend to be quite a helpful thing, and the thing they helped Darren Clarke do at Forest of Arden yesterday was win the English Open.

They helped him make up a six-stroke deficit on Michael Campbell, the leader for the first three rounds; they helped towards a round of 65, a 13-under-par total of 275, and they helped to win Clarke a first prize of £130,390 sterling.

It was entirely appropriate, too, that Clarke should, by successfully defending this title, complete a run which has seen Europe's top four golfers, Jose Maria Olazabal, Lee Westwood, Colin Montgomerie and now Clarke, win in successive events.

He won by one shot from the joint runners-up, Campbell and Mark James (£67,949 each), with Ricardo Gonzalez and Westwood (£36,144 each) two strokes further back on 278.

It was only his seventh European title in his 10th year on tour, but it was his second this season, after the Andersen Consulting Matchplay event, and there are clear signs that he is elevating his game to an altogether higher level.

"At the start of the day," he said, "I thought I needed about a 64 to have a chance. But the way I played I could have had 61 or 62. I only just missed four putts where I was so confident they were going in that I was walking after them to pick them out of the hole.

"But this is what I have been aiming for. I want to get to the level that Monty has been at for the last few years."

Montgomerie has won the Order of Merit for the last seven years, but Clarke is now even further ahead of the Scot this year. The Northern Irishman's $1 million (£630,000) for the matchplay event seriously skewed the money list, and after this win he now has £940,631, compared to Montgomerie's £590,996.

Westwood is third with £518,152, and altogether 39 players on the European Tour have made over £100,000.

Clarke took two serious steps during the course of the event not normally associated with someone about to win. First of all, after his first-round 70 he discarded his Macgregor clubs of the last seven years and replaced them with a set of Titleist irons.

"I'd hit a few low squirty ones," he said, "and decided that the time had come. Those clubs won me a million dollars, so I think I will frame them. But I've had them for six or seven years and they were almost worn out.

"I don't have a club contract, so I'm free to use whatever I want. It was going to happen sooner or later - it just became sooner."

A second-round 72 followed, and that was when he got a telephone call from America, from the coach he shares with Tiger Woods, Butch Harmon.

"Butch had been watching me on the Golf Channel," the Ulsterman explained: "He started by calling me a `fat bleep, bleep, bleep', but it's all done in a friendly way and I know he has my best interests at heart.

Clarke occasionally gets too narrow at the top of the backswing and Harmon advises the use of an umbrella placed strategically two inches from the ball, forcing the club away from the body and giving the takeaway some width. Clarke worked on the tip and the effect was instant, a four-under par third round being followed by yesterday's seven-under effort.

"His call did the trick and he can call me whatever he wants in future if it always has that effect. I do retaliate, by the way!"

Campbell led for 63 holes of the tournament, but after his inspired opening 63, nine under, he had moved only to 13 under before bogeying the 13th and getting caught.

Up ahead, Clarke was in the process of birdieing four successive holes from the 13th, and when Campbell also bogeyed the short 15th it seemed all was over.

Clarke sank putts of 10 feet at the 13th, 15 feet on the next, 18 feet at the short 15th and 15 feet again on the 422-yard 16th.

But the Maori hit a magnificent eagle putt from all of 50 feet at the long 17th and had his arms raised aloft in celebration when it stopped a solitary roll from the hole.

He then struck a great tee-shot, to 15 feet, at the short 18th and went through the same routine, this time as the putt for a play-off cruelly lipped out.

"I'm disappointed not to have closed the deal - but there's always next time," he said.

James, in the midst of a furore over his Ryder Cup book, proved there is nothing wrong with his concentration by finishing second. He too had a chance at a playoff, but his birdie putt at the 17th, from only four feet, was tentative and dribbled away off-line.

Afterwards he faced a tabloid scrimmage and was asked if he would be "quitting" as Ryder Cup vice-captain?

"I'll do whatever is best for the team," he said. "I can understand that a couple of people might not like what is in the book, but I don't think it has really justified the press it has got.

"I don't like the fuss, but it's not affected my golf and my priority is on trying to play well enough to make the team," said the 46-year-old.

"I think it's a bit of a storm in a teacup to be honest and I've no regrets."

However, James added that if Sam Torrance, who since taking over from him has named him as one of his vice-captains, decides to ask him to stand down because of the furore he will do so.

Torrance has so far backed James' "right to write" to the hilt, but says himself that if he is told to reconsider James' position - presumably by Europe's Ryder Cup Committee - he will do so.

That throws the ball into the court of the committee, and according to their spokesman they are not arranging a special meeting to discuss the issue.