‘Ireland has conveyor belt of potential major winners’

Ireland’s golfing success story could run and run, British Open champion Darren Clarke said yesterday. The 42-year-old Northern Irishman’s remarkable victory at Royal St George’s this month follows on from wins in the last two US Opens by compatriots Rory McIlroy and Graeme McDowell and Irishman Padraig Harrington in claiming three major titles. Their exploits have enhanced Ireland’s chances of unearthing more young potential major winners, Clarke said, and he has already set the ball rolling. “I have got my Darren Clarke Foundation which is developing junior golf in Ireland and I also have my golf school in Antrim,” Clarke told reporters the day before competing in the Irish Open. “I have 38 students, from 16-18, on a two-year course where they get taught academically in the morning and have golf lessons with pros in the afternoon. I’m trying to give a little back to the game in Ireland and find the next Rory, the next G-Mac (McDowell), the next Padraig. “We have a couple of fantastic young players at the school at the moment: Paul Cutler and Alan Dunbar, who play this week, and there’s another young guy, Jack Hume, who won all the Irish boys’ titles a few years ago. But there are so many good, young kids coming through. “It’s also down to the Golf Union of Ireland. We are fortunate, there’s a bit of a conveyor belt of good youngsters. “Top-class amateurs are almost professional now the way they manage the game and prepare themselves and any advice I can give them and make them a little bit better, I’m keen to do.” Clarke, however, advises his young charges not to copy all of his ways. “I drink a little bit too much, smoke a little bit too much and enjoy myself a little bit too much at times,” he said. “But when it comes down to it, I’ll work when I really have to, as well.”Meanwhile, US Open champion Rory McIlroy said he needs to emulate compatriot Darren Clarke and learn how to play in windy conditions if he is to have a better chance of adding a British Open title to his C.V. The 22-year-old Northern Irishman struggled in the wind and rain of Royal St George’s earlier this month and tied for 25th place at Sandwich. “(British Open champion) Darren’s unbelievable in the wind and he knows how to play the right shot at the right time and maybe if I go out and play with him I could learn,” McIlroy told reporters at the Irish Open at Killarney yesterday. “I was very frustrated coming off the course at Sandwich. I feel as if I did get an Open championship where the weather was quite benign I’d have a lot better chance of contending. “It was tough. I’m going to have to learn how to play in those conditions, going forward. We don’t really have that much practice when it’s blowing 30mph; you don’t want to go out and hit that many balls (on the range). “It’s going to happen in the future where we have conditions like that. You just have to deal with them as best you can.” McIlroy lines up this week in an Irish Open field that includes Clarke, 2010 US Open champion Graeme McDowell and three-times major winner Padraig Harrington.