I defend my calls as captain, but I can’t escape pain of loss
FOUR months on and he’s still not over it. Darren Clarke will never get over it. American Doug Sanders is generally considered to have set the benchmark in golf for beating yourself up when he looked back from a decade’s distance on throwing away The Open in 1970 and said on a good day he could go 30 minutes without thinking about it. Now here’s another good-time soul with a penchant for loud trousers who’s ready to give Sanders a run for his money, as Clarke gears himself up for a lifetime of regret over Europe losing the Ryder Cup at Hazeltine under his captaincy. ‘I’ll always be disappointed and it doesn’t matter how many people tell me there was nothing more I could have done,’ said the Northern Irishman. ‘In the days after the match I spoke to all my vice-captains and others and asked them what we should have done differently and they all said: “Darren, you’ve got to stop this, you did all that you could”. But the bottom line is we lost the Ryder Cup on my watch and in the end, there’s nothing anyone can say. That’s always going to hurt.’ Christmas in the Bahamas with his lovely wife Alison and his two boys, Tyrone and Conor. What could be better? Plenty of fishing and a touch of golf. Some fine wine and spirits to celebrate their life. Still Darren couldn’t let it go. Not even on Christmas Day. ‘Isn’t it ridiculous that even on Christmas Day I was thinking about it? That’s just the way I am,’ he said. ‘I don’t think a day has gone by without me thinking about it. I guess part of it comes down to the fact I put everything into it for 18 months, but I didn’t bring the trophy back for Europe.’ As you can imagine, the amount of second-guessing has been brutal, although not even hindsight has offered any clearer vision as to how he could have materially affected the result. What about picking eight different foursomes pairings in eight matches — wasn’t that a mistake? ‘Well, first of all we had the situation with Danny (Willett) and the article that appeared that affected him, so that was a foursomes alteration we had to make, and then we lost the first session 4-0,’ he said. ‘Who wouldn’t change after that? Don’t forget, we actually won the second foursomes session.’ An error not to pitch in the English rookies earlier? ‘After being whitewashed in that first session 4-0, I felt we had to top-load the team with experience for the next two sessions, which we won,’ he argued. ‘It was unfortunate the rookies didn’t play more, but I think most captains would have done the same.’ What about splitting the Spanish pairing of Sergio Garcia and rookie Rafa Cabrera-Bello when they roared back from four down to halve their foursomes match on Saturday morning? ‘Actually, that’s the one piece of criticism that really annoys me,’ he said. ‘I had to put in the pairings for the afternoon fourballs precisely when they were four down and not playing great. How could anyone have predicted they would finish so strongly?’ Clarke’s vice-captains are right. It really is time he gave himself a break. You can quibble here and there but this was a Ryder Cup ultimately decided not by captaincy but the fact the Americans played superior golf. It happens. Not that this will make Clarke feel any better. It’s symptomatic of the man that he has requested a meeting with European Tour chief executive Keith Pelley and his cohorts to go through every fine detail of the last match. ‘I just want to do everything I can to make sure we don’t lose the next one and so Thomas (Bjorn), who’s a very similar character to myself, doesn’t feel what I feel,’ he said. ‘And it’ll never leave me. If you and I sit down for a beer in 10 years’ time and you ask me what it was like being Ryder Cup captain, I can tell you now what my answer will be. ‘I will say it was an honour and a privilege — and I’m still mightily p ***** off that we lost.’