By late August, American scribes were in the mood to deify Tiger Woods. "This was golf to raise the dead," declared Sports Illustrated in acknowledgement of a USPGA Championship triumph which had secured him a record-equalling third professional major in the same year. They further claimed that "he's competing only against ghosts of the game's greats".
Yet, only six months previously, in the quiet backwater of La Costa in southern California, the perennial world number one had experienced more than enough problems among the living. Indeed the San Diego Union Tribune of Monday, February 28th, carried the banner headline: "Tiger meets his match."
At the end of a year of stunning domination by Woods, the achievement of Darren Clarke in capturing the Andersen Consulting World Matchplay Championship has been significantly enhanced. But even back then, given the quality of the opposition, it ranked with the finest golfing performance by an Irishman, which was Fred Daly's British Open triumph of 1947.
The favourite readily acknowledged Clarke's supremacy after a surprisingly comfortable margin of 4 and 3 in the 36hole final. "To be honest with you, Darren just flat outplayed me today," said Woods with admirable candour. "He hit the ball beautifully, missed only one fairway and made a lot of putts. I just wasn't able to put pressure on him." From the decidedly modest position of 66/1 outsider before the tournament, Clarke beat a succession of Ryder Cup players to claim the top prize of $1 million - a record for an Irishman. And he did it as the 19th seed, being drawn in the opening round against 46th seed Paul Azinger.
After accounting for the 1993 USPGA champion by 2 and 1, Clarke went on to demolish the 14th seed, Mark O'Meara, by 5 and 4 on the second day. Then came a tough, one-hole victory over fellow European and 35th seed, Thomas Bjorn in the last 16. So he was through to the weekend without ever appearing vulnerable.
Indeed a measure of the Tyroneman's confidence was that in Saturday's quarterfinals there wasn't even the hint of triumphalism after he avenged a 4 and 2 Ryder Cup defeat by Hal Sutton the previous September. Rather, he was content to let his superlative golf to the talking, notably in coming from three down after four to win 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, the 11th seed, jabbed ruinously at a two-and-a-half foot putt for what would have been 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 had eased onto the lip of the 18th hole in three after Sutton had taken five, from a pushed approach right of the green.
By this stage, there was the feeling that anything was now possible, and the Americans seemed to acknowledge as much as they hailed the well-rounded broth of a boy who could drink beer, smoke cigars and be privy to the coaching secrets of Butch Harmon. For his part, Clarke rode the whirlwind for all he was worth.
If there was one shot which rocked David Duval in the semi-finals, it was a 260-yard three-wood from the Irishman at the 541-yard 12th. It came after the world number two 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.
"David wasn't quite on top of his game in the afternoon, but I succeeded in hitting greens and knocking in a few putts, " he said. "I've played very solidly. After my first round win over Paul Azinger, I said my swing felt good. And as the week has gone on, my scoring's got better, mainly because I haven't missed many greens." In the final, the turning point came on the opening hole of the afternoon round. A few minutes earlier, while Woods worked on the practice ground, Harmon asked Clarke if he wished to join them. "No, I'm too tired," came the reply, accompanied by a broad grin. Then, with the pair deadlocked going up the 19th, Clarke proceeded to follow an eight-iron approach with a 15-foot birdie putt to go one up.
By the 26th, where he carded his 11th of 12 birdies in the final, he had what proved to be an unassailable four-hole lead. From the 10th tee in his match against Duval until the 26th green against Woods, Clarke had shot 15 birdies in 33 holes while beating the two best players in the world. Aware of how tightly a fragile temperament had been held in check, Harmon observed: "I saw a Darren Clarke today I hadn't seen before. In 33 holes, he missed one fairway. He looked Tiger Woods in the eye and said `I'm gonna kick your butt', then went out and did it - the same way Tiger's been doing it to everybody else."
Meanwhile, Clarke's manager Andrew Chandler echoed the feelings of those of us fortunate enough to witness this wonderful happening, when he said: "Darren needed a week like this. Everybody needed a week like this."
Everybody, that is, except Woods, who would later experience considerably greater success against golfing ghosts.
