Northern Ireland golfing star Darren Clarke has spoken for the first time about his romance with model boss Alison Campbell.

Speaking exclusively to the Belfast Telegraph, the Dungannon man revealed that he will be spending part of the festive period with the former beauty queen.

And he said his relationship with Alison, whom he has been dating since early November, was “going well”.

Darren was in Belfast yesterday to launch a fundraising event as part of a campaign by Queen’s University Foundation Board to raise £85m for its cancer research and cell biology centre and related research work. The event will take place at Helen's Bay Golf Club next February.

Darren (41), who lost his wife Heather to breast cancer in August 2006, said the campaign was close to his heart.

“It’s very definitely something that I want to be involved with, given that cancer has affected me and my family in the past.

“I have my own foundation which works hard to support breast cancer awareness, but this is something different, a multi-million pound campaign to raise awareness in Northern Ireland and to help with research work.”

The father-of-two said he would not be able to attend the function on February 6 as he would be in Dubai but he would be using his influence to encourage people to get behind the campaign.

And he said he was looking forward to the festive period. “I’ll be spending Christmas with my family in London, then Alison will be coming over for a few days after that,” he said.

But he would not be drawn on what he was planning to give his new girlfriend as a Christmas gift. “I’m not telling you that,” he laughed. “All I will say is that things are going very well between us.”