It had been a day of extraordinary achievement, yet Darren Clarke projected an air of quiet composure after his victories over Hal Sutton and David Duval. Indeed he even saw fit to indulge in some self-mocking about failed attempts to trim down his rather generous girth.

"All the hard work I've done in the gym during the winter is standing me in good stead," he said with heavy irony.

In fact he had a fully-equipped gym specially installed at his new home in Sunningdale two years ago and, by his admission, the equipment has since been gathering dust, other than when his neighbour, Paul McGinley, uses it.

If the intention was to lessen the pressure on himself before tilting with the Tiger, the ploy seemed to work perfectly. And Clarke extended the mood on into the evening when he went for a quiet meal with his manager, Andrew "Chubby" Chandler, and Butch Harmon, the coach he shares with Tiger Woods.

"Darren is like a big teddy bear," said Harmon. "You just want to go up and hug him. He's a great kid with a great personality. He's playing the best I've ever seen him play, and if I could get him to lose 20 pounds he'd be even better. Thirty-six holes is a bit of a test for him."

Harmon went on: "I think he's the product of his environment. The Irish are laid-back, goodtime people. When I saw him at Las Vegas recently, I said, `What have you been doing, hanging out in the pubs, drinking and smoking cigars?' He replied `Yeah'."

Meanwhile, there wasn't even the hint of triumphalism after Clarke had avenged a 4 and 2 Ryder Cup defeat by Hal Sutton at Brookline last September. He seemed to be more than satisfied to let his superlative golf do the talking, notably in coming from three down after four to win comfortably, albeit on the 18th.

There were birdies at the seventh, ninth, 10th and 12th, three of them for wins. And from his only bogey of the round, at the short 14th, he escaped with a half after Sutton had jabbed ruinously at a two-and-a-foot putt for a winning par.

Though the margin of victory was officially one hole, this stemmed from the matchplay courtesy of the loser conceding the match rather than the final hole. In fact, Clarke's ball was eased onto the lip of the 18th hole in three, after Sutton had taken five, from a pushed approach right of the green.

A measure of Clarke's achievement was that as number 19 seed in a field of the world's leading 64 players, he had advanced to the semi-finals in the company of top seed Woods, number two David Duval and number four Davis Love III.

Did he see himself as striking a blow for the European game? Not really. "Sure, it's nice to have a European in the semi-finals, but we're all playing for ourselves here," he said.

Such thinking, allied to an unshakeable belief in the quality of his own ball-striking, left him far from overawed at the prospect of facing Duval, who had been six under par when crushing Scott Hoch by 5 and 4 in the morning. With Clarke, reputations count for very little; his respect for opponents is based essentially on their ability as pure ball-strikers.

So it was with Duval. Despite the intensive fitness regime which the world number two engaged in during the winter months, Clarke consistently outdrove him. And when it came to precise approach play, Duval was inside him only once - at the sixth.

If there was one shot which really rocked the American, it was a 260-yard three-wood from Clarke at the 541-yard 12th. It came after Duval had driven into the left rough, so being forced to lay up in two. As for Clarke: his three-wood second covered the flag all the way, before coming to rest in the back fringe. From there, he eased a long, downhill putt five feet past the target and then got the one back to open up a three-hole lead with six to play.

By lunchtime, he had set an Irish record through a guaranteed minimum cheque for $300,000. Now the figure had gone up to $500,000 - a record by any player in an official European Tour event.

"I don't know if there were any turning points against David," he said. "He wasn't quite on top of his game in the afternoon, but I succeeded in hitting greens and knocking in a few putts.

"I'm playing very solid," he continued. "After my win over Paul Azinger (first round), I said my swing felt good. And as the week has gone on, my scoring has got better, mainly because I haven't missed many greens."

By way of proving his determination to maintain the magic, he went to the practice ground after beating Duval, to discover that Woods had arrived some time earlier to hit shots under Harmon's guidance, despite an impressive demolition job on Love in the other semi-final.

It provided an opportunity for Chandler, a former European Tour campaigner, to boast: "I now hold the distinction of being the last player to beat Darren."

It happened the previous weekend on the other course at La Costa where, receiving four strokes on each nine, Chandler covered 16 holes in two-underpar gross to win $175 off his charge.

If it did anything to knock Clarke's game into the splendid shape it adopted in the heat of competition, it was arguably the player's best investment since turning professional.