Pádraig facing uphill battle for top spot

PÁDRAIG HARRINGTON is not about to throw in the towel but he has confessed he’s now staring at the near impossible odds of capturing a second European Number One crown.

Harrington slipped one place to 18th on the Race to Dubai money list after a disappointing 38th-place finish in the Singapore Open that left him lying 10 shots behind Ryder Cup colleague, Ian Poulter.

The triple Major winner can still capture this week’s WGC–HSBC Champions event in Shanghai and also the season-closing Dubai World Championship and still come up short given the 17 players ahead of him will also be adding to their pockets.

Harrington trails €1,227,242 behind Lee Westwood and that’s some €146,000 more than Harrington’s earned all season in Europe. “I said at the start of the Singapore Open that I needed to win two, and if not probably my three closing events,” said Harrington.

“But I guess that goal is looking a lot tougher now after Singapore. I didn’t make too many things happen in Singapore and I really need to do that here in Shanghai and then in Dubai.

“Winning the Race to Dubai title is still mathematically possible and that’s how I am looking at it even though the odds have widened in my favour.”

Meantime – Michael Hoey faces a long two-day wait to learn if he will get to tee-up in the company of Tiger Woods in Thursday’s starting HSBC Champions event in Shanghai.

The Portuguese Open winner arrived in the Chinese financial capital yesterday as second reserve into the $US 7m no cut event.

When the tournament was first launched in 2005, it was, as the namesake implies, a champion’s only event featuring winners from Europe, Asia, the States and key winners from other Tour’s.

But now that it’s become a World Golf Championship, the US Tour dominated World Golf Federation has moved the entry criteria goal posts.

No longer does the winner of the Portugal Open or other Race to Dubai events automatically qualify.

A European Tour notice has been on display at events in recent weeks indicates that ‘if necessary’ the list of tournament winners on the notice will play but only if those who qualify in winning more prestigious tournaments elect not to travel to China.

Hoey was well down the list. There already have been some withdrawals, and once again Americans, in a field boasting Tiger Woods and Phil Mickelson in the same Asian tournament for a first occasion. So all Hoey can do is wait around till Thursday and hope there is two further withdrawals. And as Hoey bides his time in Shanghai, his Irish caddy is stranded out of necessity in Singapore for two days awaiting a Chinese visa.

Then there’s the tale of Graeme McDowell’s golf clubs. McDowell returned home to Portrush after finishing in a share of fifth in last week’s Singapore Open while Neil McLaughlin from Horizon Sports said he would take McDowell’s clubs to Shanghai and then onto next week’s UBS Hong Kong Open where McDowell is due next to compete.

Unfortunately when McLaughlin arrived at Singapore airport early Monday morning, China Eastern Airways slugged him €241 to transport the clubs to Shanghai. And he knows he’s staring at another expensive excess baggage charge next Monday as he’s travelling from Shanghai to Hong Kong again with China Eastern.