Desperate Darren Clarke shrugged off his American Express Championship disaster saying, the Ryder Cup will be a different story.

Clarke finished in second last place on seven OVER par after a final round 74, just three shots better than Kenichi Kuboya of Japan.

The Dungannon man made 15 bogeys and two double bogeys over the four rounds to be the worst of the 17 Ryder Cup players in action.

But he firmly believes that the Ryder Cup will be a different story.

He said: “As I said all week, the Ryder Cup is totally different. Hopefully what happened this week won’t make a difference for next week. I’ve been hitting the ball fine but just not getting any momentum going at all or making putts early on. Whatever is happening for me is going the wrong way.

“Everybody goes through spells like this but the problem is that I’ve been going through one for most of the year. Right now I’m at 70 percent. I’ve put the work in and it’s a case of waiting for results.

“I can’t put my finger on what is happening. The whole idea this week was to do the work here so that there wouldn’t be as much to do next week. It’s just a predicament of doing too much practice next week.”

Clarke even had words of advice from Tiger Woods on the range on Thursday night as he struggled to move the ball form right to left.

“Tiger saw that I was having trouble hitting a draw. He just pointed out a few thing for five or ten minutes,” said Clarke. “I’d give him a few pointers too but I might mess him up. But seriously, he seems to be doing alright on his own.”

After an encouraging 70 on Saturday, Clarke was back to his old ways yesterday with three bogeys and a double bogey on the 16th.

But he blamed pure bad luck for his failure to finish the tournament on a high note.

“It’s the same at the other day,” he said. “I’m hitting the ball alright but not scoring well. For example, on the fourth I had a wedge from 123 yards that just flew over the back into the hazard. Don’t know why.

“On the fifth (par five), I hit the green in two and took three putts. Then on the 14th I went over the back near the TV tower and had a chip shot that I wanted to let trickle down to the flag. But the ball hit a TV cable, jumped up and then ran past the flag, stopped on the tier and then trickled down the slope as I was walking over to it. It’s breaks like that. Next week let’s hope I have some good ones.”

Dane Thomas Bjorn has singled out Europe’s great team spirit as a secret weapon to win back the Cup and Clarke agrees.

“That’s true,” said Clarke. “Our team spirit is great and always has been. We all pull unbelievably hard for each other.”

“Brookline is long gone now but it would be nice to be on a winning team again. I won’t mind playing all five matches if Sam asks me . We are up at six o’clock every morning and it’s a very tough week. It’s easy to enjoy the Ryder Cup when you are looking back on Sunday night.

“The US has a strong team in strokeplay but that doesn't make much difference in matchplay. We are always the underdogs.”

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© Brian Keogh 2002

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