What a cracking win by Darren Clarke at The Open – he’s a popular man on the tour and showed that no matter how old you are it’s never too late to get a first Major in the bag.

Having missed the cut myself I watched the last two days from my armchair and thought Darren held it together so well. At one point it looked like Phil Mickelson might nick it or maybe Dustin Johnson but Darren didn’t falter and it’s another fairy story for golf in Northern Ireland.

There should be quite an atmosphere when we play the Irish Open in Killarney next week.

As for me, I don’t know if I should blame myself, the weather, the fact we don’t have a ten-shot rule anymore, bad luck or what for things going wrong at St George’s

I had a great first day shooting one under in difficult conditions but had to go out in the toughest of the weather the next day too and it just drifted away from me a little bit.

Even then, had the wind not dropped for the later finishers, I’m sure my four over total would have got me in the for the weekend but it wasn’t to be.

At one time there was a rule whereby if you were within ten shots of the leader you qualified for the weekend but that was scrapped because sometimes there were too many players in the last two rounds.

It does seem harsh though that I, like quite a number of others including Lee Westwood, missed out despite being within eight shots of the top. With the way the conditions were anything was possible and a couple of 68s to follow would likely have got me a top ten.

I played nicely but didn’t hole a couple of important putts in the run-in which would have made all the difference.

No use crying about it now though. I reckon I need a top two in Ireland to qualify for the USPGA by being in the World’s top 100 and I still believe I’m capable of it.

There’s a fair bit of the season to go with 16 tournaments left and it’s still perfectly possible to turn an ordinary season into a good one.

One Response to a good season is still possible

1. James Hobbs says:

   July 20, 2011 at 2:23 pm

   Danny you’re going to finish strong, stay focused and believe. Don’t look past one tournament at a time or one day at a time. Good things happen to those who are prepared to play well–keep working hard.
   Coach

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