You don’t need to be a rocket scientist to work out that Charl Schwartzel has already become a name to conjure with this season.

Successive victories at the Africa Open and then the Joburg Open also provide long-awaited proof that the South African really does have game.

Yet it is also good to see that Darren Clarke, who finished second to Schwartzel last weekend, now appears to be regaining the belief that, allied to his game, made him a potential winner until his career went into hold – the death of his wife Heather the day before his 38^th birthday in 2006 making life, tragically, so very much harder.

He did make the Ryder Cup his own that year. There wasn’t a dry eye at the K Club as Clarke bravely helped Europe to victory but since his last tour win in 2008, the KLM Open, the Northern Irishman has been a peripheral figure as his results in the four grand slam events confirm.

His star had fallen so much that he didn’t get to play Augusta last year, he missed the cut at the US Open and USPGA and his finish of T-52 at Turnberry was another example of someone almost going through the motions.

While his stablemate Lee Westwood was doing the work and posting the scores that took him so close to three Major triumphs as well as making him Europe’s No 1 again, there were occasions when Clarke looked to have accepted his lot: that having for so long been The Man Most Likely To in so many of the biggest tournaments, he was the man, seemingly, least interested.

Yet the old sparkle in his eyes appears to have returned. One of the nicest guys you could hope to meet on tour shot his lowest round this century, carding a bogey-free 63 in the first round a determined finish almost saw tie for second place with another South African, Keith Horne.

A chip-in for eagle at the Par five final hole following a birdie at the 16^thgave him a 68 and his fourth successive score under 70 and after so many years of wallowing amongst the also-rans Clarke is even back in the world top 100, more comfort for someone who spent 43 weeks in the top ten between 200 and 2002 and beat Tiger Woods in the 2000 WGC-Anderson Consulting Matchplay Championship final.

Another Ryder Cup appearance, something which had looked beyond him, may now be a possibility and be far more important to him right now than his £105,725 winnings, the most he has come away with since that KLM triumph.

No one who knows Clarke, even if it is only on a professional basis like myself, would mind in the slightest if the big fella who was one of Rory McIlroy’s great inspirations, were to start winning again and certainly adding more power to the Irish who this season are already looking to McIlroy, Padraig Harrington and Graeme McDowell to get the rub of the Green.

As a 40 year old he is very much middle-aged in terms of competing at the highest level but he still hits it miles and if he gets the wand going – and that belief going – he might just make Celtic Manor.

Yet nobody can compete with Schwartzel right now. Having been such an impressive winner at East London the week before was in a class of his own in his native Johannesburg as he romped to 23-under, six strokes ahead of Clarke and Horne, courtesy of a closing 66.

After matching his playing companion, Clarke's 63 in the first round, Schwartzel just kept going and in his first eight competitive round this year he is an amazing 43 under par

He now has five European Tour wins under his belt and at the age of 25, having even as a teenager been tipped for greatness, may be about to achieve just that.

The Major success that was so long predicted of Clarke, meanwhile, may now never happen but even at the USPGA last August he was talking in that quiet way of his, that things may have started to turn around.

Too often the hurt in his eyes has been too easy to see these past couple of years especially.

When you are as good as he can be, all the fat cigars and pints of the Black Stuff in the world don’t make up for losing it. And for a while there, big Darren looked to have lost it – if not the game but the utilise the great talent he has.

It is too early to say if he’s really stoked up again but the indications are very positive and with his good pal Westwood always around to encourage him we may just be about to witness the re-birth of a career. After all, Westwood did it. Now it might be his mate’s turn, too.