Away from the golf course, Darren Clarke has revelled in everything that has come his way as an Open champion over these past 12 months.

On the course, however, it's been a different story. Like the Royal Lytham rough, the Northern Irishman's year has been, well, rough. It's been more a case of barren Clarke rather than Darren Clarke but, ahead of his defence of his title over the punishing Lancashire links this week, the 42-year-old's competitive fires are being stoked again.

Handing back the Claret Jug to Peter Dawson, the chief executive of the Royal & Ancient, at the front door of the Lytham clubhouse yesterday morning was a bit of a scunner for Clarke – "I had tears in my eyes," he joked – but maybe it's for the best.

"It's not quite in as good a condition as I received it in," said the Ryder Cup stalwart with a smile. "But Mr Dawson looked at it and said 'oh, we can fix that and we can fix this.' So it's not too bad."

Clarke's astonishing triumph at Royal St George's last July will live long in the memory. A rank outsider and sitting down in 111th on the world rankings at the time, the Dungannon man tamed the rigorous conditions over the Sandwich links and landed his first major title in 54 attempts at one of the big four. When he waddled bleary-eyed into the press centre the morning after that emotional triumph, you knew that Clarke, never one to turn down the odd pint of Guinness, would enjoy his long-awaited success.

Unfortunately, the hangover from that colossal party has lingered on. In the period since that win, Clarke has missed the cut in the last three majors while his best finish in a strokeplay contest was a 20th place in the Volvo Golf Champions event at the start of the season.

"I don't know if it's because of winning the Open championship or not, but I've certainly fallen into a little bit of a trap of trying to play better, and trying too hard as opposed to just going and playing," said Clarke. "I want to win again and I want to win bigger and better tournaments. There is none better than the Open Championship, but I want to win the big tournaments.

"From the day that I lifted a club and started playing, all I ever wanted to do was to win the Open Championship. Maybe now that I've given the Jug back for this week, I'll maybe get back to playing the way I can play."

This week would be the perfect time to start. The largely boisterous conditions at Sandwich a year ago certainly played into Clarke's experienced hands. The outlook for the coming week at Lytham looks fairly ghastly but the 14-time European Tour winner, who finished in a share of third behind David Duval the last time the Open was held here in 2001, is not one to be daunted by a potentially fearsome forecast which, allied to the brutal rough and the 205 bunkers, will pose considerable menace.

"I grew up in it and in Ireland we haven't always had good weather over there have we?" said Clarke, who rose to 30th in the world after his Open win but has slithered back down to 84th. "The course is quite narrow and the rough is very, very penal, it's a bit thicker than what you would normally find on a links course. If you start spraying the ball around this week, you may as well go home.

"There's a huge premium on accuracy and it's going to be a big challenge. That's what we expect and that's what we're going to get. If conditions are tough, well that doesn't particularly bother me. That's fine."

Socially and professionally, Clarke's year as Open champion has been pretty hectic. The celebrations that followed his win would not have been for the faint-hearted but, perhaps surprisingly, the one thing he didn't do was take a triumphant sip out of the Claret Jug itself.

"It is just too special a trophy," said Clarke, who did admit that the replica of the trophy took a bit of a pounding, though. "I have so much respect for the Open championship, and I couldn't get myself to do it.

The mischievous grin soon returned, though. "I don't need to have a jug to drink out of."