Clarke knows touchy-feely style is the key to his Open ambitions

'I firmly believe that I'm good enough to win at least one major. I know my best is a match for anyone in the world'

Uncharacteristically, Darren Clarke did not mount a particularly stout defence of his Smurfit European Open title at the K Club in Ireland last weekend, a final-round 67 notwithstanding. That may be because his thoughts had already turned to Muirfield, where the 131st Open Championship starts on Thursday. Certainly, his close friend and redoubtable manager, Andrew "Chubby" Chandler, tells me that he has never seen Clarke so focused, so early, on the Open.

The man himself confirms it. "I've been trying to hit shots in other tournaments that I'll need at Muirfield," he says. "Lots of low drivers and punchy irons. Touch and feel shots. I definitely see the Open as my best chance to win a major."

The statistics support him. Last year, at Lytham, Clarke finished third behind David Duval. In 1997, at Troon, he came joint-second. He was brought up playing golf on the wonderful, windswept courses of the Northern Ireland coast – Royal Portrush, Castlerock, Portstewart – and is thus equipped with every shot required to tame even the most ferocious links. He is also reputed to be one of the best bad-weather players in the game. If rain lashes the Firth of Forth this week, it will do nothing for Clarke's caber-sized cigars, but everything for his chances of winning the coveted claret jug.

We meet in the media centre at the K Club, and for a while watch Greg Rusedski losing to Xavier Malisse in the fourth round at Wimbledon. "Is he supposed to win this one?" Clarke asks.

The highest-placed Briton in the world rankings – currently 14th – knows about expectations. Since his handicap hit scratch, when he was 15, great things have been predicted for him. And to a large extent he has delivered, most dramatically in the $1m World Golf Championship two years ago, when he disposed of the world's No 2, Duval, in the semi-final, and the universe's No 1, Tiger Woods, in the final.

We'll come back to that. It's not everybody who has beaten Woods 4 and 3 over 36 holes, in fact, other than Clarke, it's not anybody. But let's talk more about his repertoire of touchy-feely shots, so suited to the Open.

"Oh, you know, hitting a driver 280 yards 10 feet off the ground, under the wind," he says. "You keep the ball back in the stance, get on top of it a lot more, turn through it harder. Hitting three-irons 10 feet off the ground. Using the putter from 20 yards short of the green. Using a punchy five-iron for a 140-yard shot. It's not that the other guys can't do it. They can all do it. But it's about feeling comfortable doing it. I grew up playing those shots. At Lytham last year I played them all week."

Clarke has also been having intensive help from a sports psychologist, John Pates.

"He's been trying to clear my mind of the negative stuff. I can end up thinking too much about the mechanics, trying to hit every shot perfectly. That's my downfall. I don't forget bad shots very quickly. And I also tend to get very aggressive, to go for shots I shouldn't. I don't find it easy to hit away from flags if they're beside water, for example. That's what the psychology is about, but it's nothing new. I started working with a guy, Peter Dennison, when I was 17 years old." A chuckle. "You'd think I'd be a bit more sensible by now."

He grew up in Dungannon, County Tyrone, and moved to Portrush when he was 17. Although he now lives with his wife and two sons in 13 acres of stockbroker-belt Surrey, his attachment to his home town is such that he named his elder boy Tyrone. And young Tyrone, I fancy, already knows the rudiments of the golf swing.

"I started caddieing for my dad when I was nine," Clarke recalls, "and when I was 11 I got the bug myself. My dad used to take me up to Portrush.We played all those great courses up there, and Ballyliffin along the coast. The greatest courses in the world. And the members were great with me at Dungannon. At some clubs kids are seen as more of a hindrance, but I was playing men's competitions when I was 11 years old."

The only hindrance he posed to the adult members was that he kept beating them. "My handicap went from 36 to 13 in my first year, and from 13 to three in my second year. I couldn't stop playing golf."

At the expense of his studies? "No, I didn't bunk off school. I got seven O-levels and two A-levels." And two weeks ago an honorary doctorate from the University of Ulster, which recognised his deeds off the golf course, as well as on.

In 1998 he organised a pro-am, which in a day raised £369,000 for the victims of the Omagh bombing, and this year set up the Darren Clarke Golf Foundation, which aims to give disadvantaged Irish kids the opportunity to play golf. Palpably, despite occasional grumpiness on the golf course, Clarke is one of the good guys, hugely generous with himself as well as others. "His philosophy is to spend the money before he earns it," Chandler confides. "He buys a car, then goes out and earns the money for it. He completed on his house the week before he won [this year's English Open] at the Forest of Arden."

There would be no more popular winner if Clarke were to triumph at Muirfield tomorrow week. But if he doesn't? If indeed, he follows the course seemingly being mapped out by Colin Montgomerie, and ends his career without a major to his name?

"Then I'll be very disappointed. I firmly believe that I'm good enough to win at least one. I know my best is a match for anyone in world. I've beaten Tiger in a 36-hole final, head to head, so if needs be I can do it again in one or two majors."

With not only the Open looming, but also the Ryder Cup, that epic defeat of Tiger Woods is worth deconstructing. How did he do it? "I played very well, and he wasn't playing that well, for him. I was 40 yards behind him on every tee shot, but I was swinging well and hitting it to 10 feet most times, so he was always playing second and trying to get inside me, which put a lot more pressure on him."

I tell Clarke that Seve Ballesteros recently told me that he thinks Sergio Garcia, and most other top players, are visibly intimidated by Tiger.

"Nothing Tiger does intimidates me," he says shortly. "No way. You get used to being outdriven, but I'm not exactly short, and length isn't everything, especially on a links golf course. It's hard to overpower a links course.

"The secret of beating Tiger is that you have to enjoy it. You'll never get on top of Tiger mentally, and I do think a lot of guys worry about what he's going to do, not about their own thing. For me, the opportunity to play the best player in the world in the biggest matchplay tournament, that's what I practise for.

"He's certainly raised my standards. Watching him score the way he does makes me more determined to improve, and there's always room to get mechanically better. Some players are mechanical, some are feel. I'm much more of a feel player. Tiger's the best mixture of both. Mechanically he's fantastic, but he's got all the flop shots around the green.

"I enjoy watching a fantastic golf shot, and he hits more of them than anyone. He's got incredible body speed, hand speed. So if I'm playing with him I'll say: 'That was a proper shot, that was very impressive'. But, in saying that, I can hit a lot of proper shots myself."

Indeed he can. After our chat I follow him to the practice range where, scrutinised by his coach, Pete Cowen, he booms drive after drive, into, this being Ireland in July, the murky grey yonder. The Clarke swing is not a thing of beauty, yet his shots seem to leave the club-face with more fizz than those of the other players practising alongside him, among them his buddy and Chandler stablemate Lee Westwood. Occasionally, Clarke turns to Cowen for reassurance.

"Peter has got me back on track," he tells me. "He's got me out of some bad habits. Pete used to coach me and then we parted ways, but we stayed in touch. He's a great coach."

He has also had some tuition from Tiger's mentor, Butch Harmon. Focusing on what, I wonder? "Butch tried to get me swinging a bit wider, basically the same thing that Pete does, but using different methods. With Butch everything is on camera. He's got this great teaching facility in Las Vegas. But it wasn't working because of him being in America."

What the coaches don't teach are the little bits of gamesmanship, something, again, that Ballesteros touched on. Clarke smiles when I mention this aspect of the game. "Yeah, the unwritten stuff. It's nothing ungentlemanly, nothing underhand. But it goes on in strokeplay as well as matchplay. Because you want everything to be to your advantage. With club selection, the club goes back in the bag very quickly, so the other guy can't see what you've hit. Or if he can see, and it's a six-iron shot, you'll maybe hit a five-iron a bit softer. Little bits and pieces like that."

And since we've mentioned Ballesteros, what of the sadly diminished maestro? I have heard that one of Clarke's fondest childhood memories is of watching Seve's celebrated car-park shot at the 1979 Open.

"Yeah, that was an inspiration to me. He's a legend. It's very sad to see him now. I think that, basically, he has lost his natural way of playing the game. Even when he was winning tournaments he played differently from everyone else, hitting shots up over trees that were impossible for anyone else, but then he tried to go down the route of hitting more fairways, more greens, trying to play a game that was totally alien to him."

Who else inspired him? "Greg Norman was another. Because he was long but also straight, and hit those high towering iron shots into greens. I loved that."

Clarke is smiling, as he frequently does. It is time to introduce a bit of shadow to the proceedings. Firstly, I mention Tony Jacklin, who criticised him, as Nick Faldo reportedly did Colin Montgomerie, for eschewing tournaments in America in favour of the "comfort zone" of Europe.

Predictably, the smile fades. "That was a complete load of bollocks. My work-rate is very, very high. I work as hard if not harder than anybody.

"I can accept criticism, but not from somebody who doesn't know. The European Tour has changed a lot since he [Jacklin] was playing. Yes, it's America where the majority of the best players are, but I can become good enough playing in Europe, and this is where my family are. I'm 32. If I was 22 I might go to America. But Tyrone is going to school full-time in England, Conor will be too, so I'm happy playing nine or 10 times a year in America. The comfort zone is not where I am at all."

Fair enough. But since he mentions family life, there is a much more painful subject that needs addressing. Over Christmas last year, Clarke's wife, Heather, was diagnosed with breast cancer. In January she underwent surgery, successfully. I ask whether this trauma changed his perspective on golf?

"Sure it did," he says. "Golf is not the be-all and end-all. It's great she has her health again, but what it also showed me is that you never know when you're not going to have it. I want to make the most of mine, while I can."

Darren Clarke: The life and times

Name: Darren Clarke.

Born: Northern Ireland, 14 August 1968.

Family: Wife: Heather (m 1996); Children: Tyrone (1998), Conor (2000).

Turned professional: September 1990.

Career highlights: Belgian Open, 1993; Volvo Masters and Benson and Hedges International Open, 1998; English Open, 1999; Accenture Match Play Championship, English Open, 2000; European Open, 2001; English Open, 2002.

Rankings: 2nd in 1998 and 2000 Volvo Order of Merit, 3rd in 2001. Currently ranked 14th in the world.

Career Earnings: £6.1m.

Interests: Hobbies include films, reading, fishing and cars, notably his gleaming Ferrari.

They say: "He has matured. He is growing up. Darren was never the quickest of learners but he's always had that wonderful flair." Andrew "Chubby" Chandler, Clarke's manager.

He says: "I'm like someone who built a fire but forgot to put a chimney in. I need a way to let the smoke out or I get very frustrated... I want to win. I want to win tournaments."