Darren Clarke is back in love. With the game, with life and with a woman. No doubt he still has a fuse shorter than one of his favourite cigars, but it is an apparently contented Northern Irishman who sits down to talk “after four years of my life being turned upside down”.

As long as he is in the public eye he will field questions about his late wife, Heather, who died from breast cancer in the summer of 2006. He will be asked about the river of tears that flowed after his Ryder Cup singles victory for Europe little more than a month after she passed away.

But he is hoping to write a fresh chapter in his life story, one that features his return as a leading golfer. It may seem a long way off, given that a player once ranked in the world's top ten is at No234, but Clarke says that he is gathering momentum. The big question is whether he will climb high enough in time for the Ryder Cup in September. It seems a big ask.

“With everything that happened - Heather being diagnosed with breast cancer the first time, then she got over that, then she was diagnosed the second time - it was a very difficult battle,” he says. “It has been four years of a very difficult time, your life turned upside down.

“I am not the only person it is going to happen to, but my job dictates that you have to be very focused and selfish to get where you want to and my mind has not been able to do that for a long time. But it is getting back. It is there now. I'd slipped down the ladder and now I'm coming back, just a little slower than I'd like.”

Clarke, 39, felt the old competitive juices pumping this month at the Malaysian Open in Kuala Lumpur. Within a stroke of the lead on the last afternoon, he ended up dropping away, but it felt good just to be back in the hunt. “I made a couple of mistakes down the stretch, being too aggressive,” he says. “I was going at every flag, the way I used to. Maybe I should be a bit older and a bit wiser and play more percentage, but I hadn't been up there for a while.

“I am not content just to tick over making the cut, finishing twentieth every week. I want to be remembered for victories. I know I keep saying that, but it is true - I am swinging better than ever. I am working away and there are so many good things happening to me.

“I've changed shafts, a few bits and pieces, and I'm working with Ewan Murray [the coach and television commentator] on my swing. I have been working with someone else on biomechanics, a better posture, that kind of stuff. And my game feels really good at the moment.”

He has even been to the gym and pats his torso to show that there is no rubber ring to hide.

Home life is much more settled and he feels that he can embark on a busy tour schedule now that his two young sons, Conor and Tyrone, are in a domestic routine. “I saw a quote that I'd given last year which said that if I was filling out one of those landing cards, my occupation would have been ‘father'. I'd never done as much, I'd never had to do as much,” he says.

“Any parent, not just me, who leaves your kids for work, you feel guilty and I guess mine was multiplied as a single parent. But I have got great people at home helping me out and that makes it a lot easier for me. And the kids are getting older and it is easier to talk and keep in touch. They can watch me on the TV, ring me and say, ‘Well done, Daddy.' My boys are much happier now, they're moving on with things as best we can.”

The new woman in Clarke's life is Kerry Schiller, a striking blonde who works for a London law firm. The pair met through mutual friends and Clarke acknowledges that a steady relationship has played its part in his on-course revival.

Schiller, who is American-born, may have divided loyalties if Clarke were to tee it up in the Ryder Cup at Valhalla, Kentucky. Clarke has played in five consecutive tournaments, including the hugely emotional victory at the KClub in CoKildare in 2006, six weeks after Heather died, aged 39.

Clarke was a wild-card pick by Ian Woosnam, the Europe captain, and secured a 3 and 2 win over Zach Johnson in the final-day singles. The extraordinary circumstances helped him to finish second to Zara Phillips in the BBC Sports Personality of the Year awards. “I'm still glad I didn't win it,” he says, “much as it was great to feel the support of everyone.”

This time he wants to avoid being reliant on a captain's pick by Nick Faldo, which is why he is throwing himself into a busy schedule in the next few months. “I have to get back up there,” he says. “I want to qualify [automatically] for the Ryder Cup, I want to be sure of playing. It has been a huge part of my career.

“I would hope my experience would stand me in good stead if I hadn't qualified, but if I am not playing well enough, it is completely irrelevant - Nick is not going to pick me anyway. And if I wasn't playing well enough, the 1st tee at Valhalla is the last place I would want to be. You don't want to be struggling with your game going into the Ryder Cup, and that's an understatement.”

The idea of captaining Europe one day appeals, although Clarke hopes to have plenty more playing left in him. What sort of leader would he be? “I'd have a great big keg of Guinness in the team room, like Woosie did, to make sure everyone can relax,” he says.

He laughs out loud, but there is also a reminder of sadder days when, standing outside the giant, gleaming TaylorMade tour truck that he has come to check out at Wentworth, he pulls on his visor for the photographs. Sewn in to the material is a pink ribbon to mark his support for the fight against breast cancer.

“I went to counselling a couple of times,” he says. “It was something I'm really glad I did. She was amazing, although now I just see a sports psychologist. I think I've seen every one of them at one time or other. It has helped to bring me back to mentally where I need to be on the golf course. If mentally you are not ready, you're banging your head against a wall. Now I couldn't be more ready to play. I can't wait for the next tournament.”