J P McManus Pro-am win worth £100,000 to Darren Clarke

FROM THE BELFAST TELEGRAPH WEBSITE
By Karl MacGinty
Darren Clarke was celebrating the best possible reason to put off his flight from Shannon to Edinburgh yesterday afternoon but absolutely nothing was going to stop Tiger Woods boarding his Gulfstream jet and heading home to Florida.
Clarke was delighted to hang around for the prize-giving ceremony at the JP McManus Invitational after a defiant second-round 68 at Adare Manor clinched a first win in two fruitless and intensely frustrating years for the Ulsterman.
Tiger's motive for hurrying back across the Atlantic after less than 36 hours in Ireland was as strong as they come. “I need to get home,” he explained, “to see my kids”.
The most stunning sex scandal in sporting history has wrecked his marriage but Tiger's paternal instincts are as strong as ever, as Ian Poulter's account of events over dinner on Monday evening in Adare clearly suggest.
The tale the Englishman told yesterday was of Woods proudly showing other players iPhone footage of his tiny son Charlie Axel swinging a golf club.
It was uncannily like the infant Tiger himself, Poulter yesterday insisted. “I did see his lad swinging a golf club on his telephone last night and it was simply incredible — the grip, the swing, the toe, all at 15 months old!
“It's scary,” he added. “By the time he's 15, he'll probably have won at Augusta. I've probably only got 13 years left.”
Woods paused long enough after his second-round 69, an improvement of 10 strokes on Monday's dismal opening effort, to give a media conference in which a few heavy seconds of silence offered poignant evidence of the trauma in his private life.
This Adare Manor victory means more to Ulsterman Clarke, 41, than the €100,000 first prize, as it offers evidence that the efforts he made to regain former glories are paying off.
Clarke left Adare for the Scottish Open in hope of winning the Open place on offer to the best top-five finisher at Loch Lomond not already exempt for next week's showpiece at St Andrews. Luke Donald finished one stroke behind the Ulsterman in second after his 69 yesterday. Irish Open champ Shane Lowry (71) tied third with Ernie Els (70) on one-under, with newly-crowned US Open champion Graeme McDowell joint fifth on level par with Poulter, among others, after both shot 69.
A level-par 72 left defending champion Padraig Harrington four-over for his 36 holes, while a double-bogey seven at 18 denied Rory McIlroy (75) a share of ninth on one-over with Damien McGrane (72).
PRO TOTALS
Par 144 (2x72). Yardage 7,453.
141 D Clarke 73 68.
142 L Donald 73 69.
143 E Els 73 0, S Lowry 72 71.
144 P Hanson 71 73, D Howell 74 70, G McDowell 75 69, I Poulter 75 69.
145 J Furyk 71 74, S Hansen 72 73, D McGrane 73 72, H Slocum 76 69, R Green 75 70.l
146 R Allenby 73 73, D Johnson 74 72, M Kaymer 74 72, J Cook 71 75, R Sabbatini 71 75, P Casey 76 70.
147 G Maybin 74 73, R McIlroy 72 75, C Villegas 73 74, J Daly 76 71.
148 J Edfors 72 76, P Harrington 76 72, T Lehman 74 74, J M Olazabal 76 72, G Fernandez-Castano 75 73, S Webster 73 75, T Woods 79 69.
149 S Marino 75 74.
150 P Finch 74 76, M Campbell 78 72, A Noren 73 77, J Van der Velde 74 76.
151 T Bjorn 77 74, P McGinley 78 73, J Rose 80 71, N Watney 74 77.
152 M Manassero 79 73, M O'Meara 76 76, B Curtis 81 71.
153 F Funk 79 74, H Stenson 72 81.
154 L Glover 73 81, D Higgins 76 78, J B Holmes 77 77, Peter Lawrie 76 78, G Murphy 76 78, A Scott 77 77.
156 R Rock 78 78