Before the 2011 Open Championship, the biggest solo win of Darren Clarke’s career came at the WGC-Andersen Consulting Match Play Championship 11 years earlier, where the Northern Irishman triumphed over Tiger Woods in the final.
There are not many players who got the better of Tiger Woods in the 2000 season. Woods won nine times throughout the year, with three major wins. But Darren Clarke did manage to beat the world number one in February.
It is remarkable to think about now, but Clarke needed to win five matches just to make the final. Along the way, he beat Paul Azinger, Mark O’Meara, Thomas Bjorn, Hal Sutton and David Duval. And unsurprisingly, it was Woods standing between him and the title.
The final was contested over 36 holes, with Clarke going on to win 4&3. It turns out that the pair had had words before the match, which Clarke suggested in his autobiography An Open Book were light-hearted but with an air of truth.
The note Tiger Woods left Darren Clarke after their match play final clash
He also revealed what Woods wrote in a note after Clarke secured the victory.
“I don’t know what made me think of it while we were chewing the bacon fat over breakfast, but I remembered Tiger once having chipped in at Muirfield Village and running round the green doing very animated fist pumps,” he wrote.
“‘Hey Tiger’, I said, ‘If you chip in today and start one of those ——- exaggerated celebrations running round the green and fist-pumping, then I’ll give you a slap across the face’.
“To which Tiger replied something along the lines of, ‘Go away, you overweight sod; you couldn’t catch me anyway’.”
He went on to add: “By the time I’d done the presentation ceremony and the media, Tiger was long gone, but he’d left a note on my locker. ‘Congratulations, be proud’. There was a PS, however, with a ruder comment about my physique. I have the note framed at home.”
Woods may have respected Clarke’s confidence
It would not have been a surprise if Woods almost respected the way Clarke made it clear that he was not going to be intimidated by his aura. Woods won two matches 5&4 that week, while another match ended 4&3 in his favour.
Clarke backed up his words with a brilliant performance. Alongside Lee Westwood, he had also beaten Woods and Duval at the 1999 Ryder Cup at Brookline, so he would have known what he was capable of.
It was a touch of class from Woods to make sure to congratulate Clarke after his victory. And understandably, that day still means a lot to Clarke.
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