Darren Clarke faces the same dilemma as his countryman Graeme McDowell was pondering 12 months ago what do you do after fulfilling all your dreams?
The Open champion is back on his most favoured form of the game for the Alfred Dunhill Links Championship for the first time since his triumph at Sandwich in July, but cheerfully admits to difficulty in reassessing where his career goes, having reached ”the top of the mountain.”
McDowell voiced the same thing after his annus mirabilis in 2010 that included the US Open title, but for a man in his mid-40s the feeling is obviously much more acute.
”I’ve managed to win the tournament I wanted to win since I started playing golf the biggest and most important tournament in the world,” he said. ”I’ve done what I always wanted to do got to the top of the mountain.
“What else can compare? I’ve had trouble getting my head around it.”
He admits that while still driven to compete and achieve, he feels a contentment with what he has already done.
He continued: ”I have no idea how the likes of Sir Steve Redgrave keep going and going and going after they achieve their lifetime goal. I can’t figure out what my goals are now, especially at this time of my career.
”My desire and determination are as strong as they’ve ever been, but I’ve won the Open, won world championships, won tournaments around the world. At some stage I might be asked to be Ryder Cup captain.
”That’s a pretty decent career. What more can I do?”
What Clarke has been doing is fine-tuning his game, deliberating on the Ryder Cup points race and performing some ad-hoc repairs on the Claret Jug.
”It’s seen some action,” he said sheepishly. ”Some people have had a few too many drinks and dropped it, and it bends quite easily, believe it or not.
”It’s happened a few times but not by me and I’ve managed to twist it back into shape. I know other people have had some fun with it before I got my hands on it, so I’m not the only one.”
As the Claret Jug is designed to have alcohol drunk from it, the R&A surely don’t mind and anyway it’s the champions’ version rather than the original from 1872, which sits in a glass case in the R&A clubhouse.