AGAINST THE ODDS:AS THE Claret Jug was raised skywards and Darren Clarke's mega-watt smile lit up the Kent coast, Foley's pub erupted in scenes not seen since the Dubs brought Sam home in 1995.
The gathering was mostly male, overweight, over 40, and almost always over par on the golf course. Most of them had Vesuvius-like tendencies when things went wrong on the links, not unlike one Darren Christopher Clarke, who had just become the third oldest first-time Major winner in golf.
What struck Vinny Fitzpatrick most was the outpouring of unfettered affection towards the burly Ulsterman from working-class hackers in Dublin.
If Pádraig Harrington was admired, Graeme McDowell respected and Rory McIlroy envied, Clarke was loved.
Clarke would never know it but in this corner of Dublin 3, he was the golfer, more than any other, including Tiger Woods, the lads would bunk off work to see squeeze through the narrow doors carrying the most famous trophy in the sport.
No one had that magnetic appeal, not since the late, irreplaceable, Seve.
As Fran and Brennie celebrated putting a score on Clarke at 14 to 1
on Saturday morning, Vinny sat contentedly, a broad grin across his chubby chops.
He hadn’t won a cent on Clarke but he couldn’t be happier for the big man with the big smile and big heart.
He loved Clarke’s line at the presentation on the 18th green where he vowed to fill the Claret Jug with “black stuff” with permission, of course, from the RA blazers.
Vinny was thinking of the contrast between Clarke and other handlers of the old trophy.
Harrington had filled his with ladybirds; Gary Player probably shoved raisins into his, while it wouldn’t have surprised Vinny if Tiger had stuffed his with mobile phone numbers.
Not Clarke, not Uncle Arthur’s most cherished advocate – how Guinness didn’t pay Clarke a king’s ransom to be a global ambassador was beyond Vinny.
Clarke invariably had a pint of stout close to his meaty hand, just as he had the day his path briefly crossed with Vinny’s more than 20 years previously, at Mullingar Golf Club.
It followed a Foley’s society outing and an overnight on the tear in Tullamore. At lunchtime on the Bank Holiday Monday, as hangovers were nursed, someone suggested popping over to Mullingar for the final holes of the Scratch Trophy.
Clarke was then the hottest prospect in Irish amateur golf, tipped to be the next Christy O’Connor, and Vinny recalled following a garishly-dressed blond colossus who chewed fags between executing sublime shots.
Afterwards, Clarke had given a laid-back interview sitting on a wall where he clutched a pint of Guinness and puffed on a fag. He oozed box office. He still does today, thought Vinny.
A journalist had asked Clarke back then about staying amateur until the Walker Cup but the reply suggested to Vinny that Clarke, then only 20, already had his eye on the greenbacks to be made in the pro ranks.
As the final round of the British Open unfolded, the Foley’s faithful had been mesmerised, right from the moment at the first hole where Clarke sank a devilishly tricky putt for par.
From then on, every Clarke drive, iron, chip and putt was forensically analysed, his shaping of shots in the wind marvelled at, as pints were downed at a ferocious lick.
The atmosphere in the old family pub was electric, far more intense than the Open in ’07 when Harrington surged from the pack in Carnoustie to peg back Sergio; or even ’08 when Paddy H played the finest back nine of his career to retain his title.
McDowell’s US Open win had been a grind, McIlroy’s a procession. But this was different because it involved Clarke, brilliant but brittle, and carrying a storyline that would put James J Braddock, “The Cinderella Man” to shame.
Yet here he was, against the odds, trading blows with the most popular American golfer, Phil Mickelson, another man not immune to life’s slings and arrows.
It was a plot which put the fictional clash between James Bond and Goldfinger on Royal St George’s into the ha’penny place. Ian Fleming would have loved it.
When Clarked matched Mickelson’s eagle three on the seventh, Foley’s went ballistic. When Clarke’s low runner Bob Beamon-ed a bunker on the ninth, the lads cheered with relief, when Mickelson missed a tiddler soon after on 11, they cheered again.
When the only challenge left to Clarkey was playing partner, Dustin Johnson, Vinny was fearful of Dustin doing to Clarke what Justin had done to him in Troon in ’97.
But when the long-locked American sliced out of town on the 14th hole his Sunday Sandwich was toast.
From there on, Clarke only had to keep the ball between the hedges and glory was his. What a glory too. It didn’t matter if he regarded himself being from Ulster, Northern Ireland or Ireland.
Who gave a fiddler’s if he held the orange third of the tricolour aloft in previous Ryder Cup photos with Harrington and McGinley?
This wasn’t about politics or religion – sure wasn’t Tom Clarke, the old Fenian and 1916 signatory, raised in Dungannon where the local GAA club is named after him, thought Vinny?
This was about getting behind one of our own heroes, slightly flawed as all heroes should be; someone every Ordinary Joe could relate to. Vinny certainly could and as Clarke, with that familiar arm-swaying walk of his, strode triumphantly up the 18th, Vinny had felt inspired.
If a 42-year-old, 20-year grizzled professional could suddenly find the best golf of his life from nowhere, then why couldn’t he?
In four weeks’, the President’s Prize in Foley’s Golf Society was up for grabs at Royal Dublin, just across the bay after Charlie St John Vernon, a long-standing member of the club, somehow inveigled a two-hour slot on the tee.
For Vinny, this would be his 30th attempt at landing the most coveted society prize – the winner was presented with a crimson jacket, first played for in 1974. Vinny’s old man, Finbarr, had been the inaugural winner and his dying wish had been that Vinny would one day follow him into the winner’s enclosure. A third at Deer Park in 1999 had been Vinny’s highest finish. Dial-A-Smile had opened a book for the President’s Prize and Vinny, a 24-handicapper, was listed at 66 to 1, and 12 to 1 for a top-five finish.
True, he was out of practice and out of form but he knew the humps and hollows of “Royaler” well and if the wind abated, he could plot his way from tee to green and trust his once reliable putting stroke might return .
He’d come close before; maybe now it was time to light the cigar, a bit like Darren Clarke.
Bets of the Week
2ptsLimerick to beat Wexford in All-Ireland SFC (2/1, Paddy Power)
2ptsAndrew Oldcorn to be top British and Irish player in Senior Open (7/1, Skybet)
Vinny’s Bismarck
2ptsly St Pat's to beat Karagandy in Europe League over 90 mins (Evens, general, liability 4pts)
