If we're entering into bumpy terrain here, it's not unreasonable to suggest that Padraig Harrington and Paul McGinley would have more of a connection with many in the galleries over the past few days. Harrington and McGinley might ply their trade in the plush, privileged, pampered world of professional golf, but they still manage to come across as salt-of-theearth Dublin types.

For both genetic and perhaps even geographical reasons, Clarke has never been quite like that. More flash, sometimes more brash, he liked to live a little bit faster than his two compatriots.

Even when he was avuncular, larger than life, he could be distant. Now and then in the past he would storm past the media with a 'Don't talk to me' glare.

We know what has happened to him. He has come to the K Club just six weeks after his wife Heather's death not with designs on repairing the hole in his heart but to discover if the competitive desire that has made him one of the game's leading players still burns.

And of course it hasn't been a question of popularity. It was preordained that the players from both teams would offer words of comfort, but no one could have been absolutely sure how Clarke was going to be embraced by the thousands and thousands of spectators. And how Clarke himself would handle the occasion.

Even if for the most part this week, cynicism has been refreshingly supplanted by sheer enthusiasm for the contest and the spectacle, it was impossible for even the most gnarled not to have been moved by the welcome Clarke received when he marched on to the first tee on Friday morning.

In fact, the genuine emotion . . . as much support as sympathy . . . could make it the defining moment of this event.

People who might have been at Muirfield Village when Eamonn Darcy took out Ben Crenshaw, or at the Belfry for Christy O'Connor jr's career shot, or at Oak Hill to witness Philip Walton's painful kind of glory, or those who celebrated Paul McGinley's putt four years ago, will say they saw Darren Clarke slay one or two demons at the 2006 Ryder Cup.

We can only guess at the emotions that were churning away inside Clarke . . . emotions, he later told a journalist, that "hopefully you won't have to feel" . . . but just before 8.50am on Friday, he was inspired. A booming drive, a sublime second shot and a birdie to kick-start his contribution.

In fact, Clarke has been magnificent here. A winner with his close friend Lee Westwood in his two fourball games against Phil Mickelson and Chris DiMarco, and Tiger Woods and Jim Furyk, he has had a hand in taking out both of America's big guns. Yesterday morning, he finished off Woods and Furyk with a raucously acclaimed chip-in at the 16th hole. This time, because of the teeming rain, you wouldn't have known if he shed a tear or two.

If his personal loss has brought some perspective, how difficult must it be to return to an event, the drama and pressure of which he once shared with his wife? Yet, paradoxically, he at times has appeared more relaxed than Harrington and McGinley.

If they have been guilty of anything, it has been that now and then, they might be trying too hard. In the Friday morning fourballs, Harrington and his partner Colin Montgomerie struggled to find their best form, and then in the afternoon, both he and McGinley let Chad Campbell and Zach Johnson off the hook. And in yesterday's foursomes, they appeared to be fighting a losing battle with Woods and Furyk.

But, like Clarke, they too have been willed on by the support. "The Ryder Cup is probably only going to happen once in my lifetime, " said Harrington, "so it's important that you enjoy it."

These are good days for Irish golf. Three players in the Europe team for the third time in a row. There might have been a few wide-eyed kids in the galleries who'll be saying in 10 years' time that they were inspired by what they saw at the 2006 Ryder Cup.

And inspired by Darren Clarke's first shot at a new life.