Criticise Harrington if you want ....

PÁDRAIG HARRINGTON is learning the hard way that it’s very difficult to please everybody all of the time.

In spite of his many outstanding performances over the past few years, people especially Irish people appear to be demanding more and more of the 31-year-old Dubliner, who for the second successive year has emerged as the second best golfer on the European Tour and with the lowest stroke average over the same two seasons.

But, you are told he threw away this and threw away that. Nobody realises more than Harrington himself how it could and probably should have been a lot better. He admitted as much in his column in last week's Irish Examiner.

But he has also reason to be proud of the many good things he achieved like his victory in the Dunhill Links Championship at St Andrews.

There were other less publicised but arguably finer moments in his season like how he handled the appalling conditions on the second day of the US Open at Bethpage Park.

It was so bad on New York's Long Island that day that the likes of Paul Azinger expressed his delight at missing the cut and there is a quiet belief in American golfing circles that others deliberately ensured they wouldn't be around for the weekend because of the severe difficulty of the golf course and the awful weather. It was that bad.

But Harrington carried on unruffled and it was almost dark when he battled his way to a magnificent round of 68. It left him four strokes behind Tiger Woods who, however, had played in the gentlest of the conditions, one good reason why he eventually won the title with something to spare. Harrington showed his bottle that day and on many other days as well.

If people wonder why Harrington often gets the kind of favourable press that his performances might not appear to warrant, there are a number of factors to consider.

First and foremost, his record is a formidable one no matter what the knockers may suggest. Then, he is a really nice guy. No ifs or buts. He has a word for everybody. His cap size remains the same and won't ever change. If other commitments prevent him from signing autographs, especially for youngsters, it preys on his mind. And when journalists ask for an interview or a chat, he always somehow manages to find time.

A classic example came at the conclusion of his press conference at Valderrama on Sunday. Mark Garrod of PA thanked him for his co-operation throughout the year. Quick as a flash, Pádraig reacted: "Can I say thank you to you guys for your support during the season. I need you as much as you need me."

Spontaneous, sincere, honest, straight to the point. That's Pádraig Harrington. Should he then be immune from criticism? Of course not. Nor does he expect it. He sometimes goes to the point of publicly commenting on his failures. He has been second 16 times in his career. Some of those were, if you like, "good" seconds. Many, unfortunately, were the result of his own misjudgements or poor play. He is as prepared as the next guy to own up to that.

Sometimes his explanations can sound contradictory. A glaring example was the six iron he flopped into the lake at the 18th at The K-Club in the Smurfit European Open when a relatively straightforward shot to the "fat" of the green would almost certainly have earned him a play-off with Michael Campbell. He claimed at the time it was eagle or nothing not even a play-off. He sees it rather differently now as he recognises victory in that tournament would have been enough to earn the order of merit title.

Potentially far more serious in the evolution of Harrington's career was the bunkered drive that cost him a play-off for the Open Championship at Muirfield. It has long been predicted that he was one of the Europeans most likely to win a major sometime in his career. There is obviously good reason for such optimism given that he had top 10 finishes in the Masters and US and British Opens this year. Equally, though, he made serious and very costly errors in all three events.

He took six at the 18th in the third round of the Masters ... he did it again at the 18th on the final day of the US Open and we've already discussed the bunkered tee shot at Muirfield. The sad reality is that you don't get too many chances to win major championships.

There are other areas where one could take issue with Harrington. Like his plan to play on for five more weeks starting this coming weekend with a Skins game in Singapore followed by tournaments in Taiwan, South Africa, California and Mexico. I wondered if all that travel and competition could be good for his future well-being?

"I don't play at the start of the year and that gives me the chance to play at the end of the year," he said. "If you look at the guys in America, they begin in January, I don't get going until the end of February, the start of March. I may be knackered after the next five weeks but then I'll have nine weeks off. I like it that way."

It's also more than a little difficult to comprehend how he is allowing his dislike of the Wentworth course in the month of May to prevent him from competing in next year's PGA Championship. It is, after all, one of the European Tour's flagship events offering 2m in prize money. He missed his one and only cut of 2002 at that event and that failure is now assuredly colouring his judgement.

"It's not that I'm not playing there, I'm just taking a week off," he said. "If you look at my record at Wentworth, I finished top 10 there once by shooting 67 in the last round. Every other year I was on the cut line or missing it altogether. If the PGA was my only tournament this year, remember my only tournament, and Anders Hansen won with 19 under, I'd have given the game up. I would have said this is not for me, I am not good enough. That's how far apart I was from Anders Hansen. He was 19 under for 72 holes, I was four over after 36. It's a great event but I'm never going to play well there at that time of year."

I'm not for a moment ruling out the possibility that Harrington will one day capture a major. He insists himself that his game is improving all the time and certainly that seems to be the case. Knock him if you will for not winning the order of merit over the past few weeks but it should equally be acknowledged that second in such company isn't bad. And let's look at how his order of merit ranking has progressed since he first contested the Tour in 1996: 11th, eighth, 29th, seventh, seventh, second and second.

He won the stroke average last year with a total of 69.23. He did it again this year with 69.48. It is by far the most important and prestigious category on the tour statistics. A few weeks ago, he reached sixth in the world; now he is eighth. That's a fantastic achievement by any standards.

Criticise him all you want, but it's Harrington's own performances that are raising the levels of expectancy and when it comes to calling up names capable of beating Woods in a major, Pádraig's is one of those invariably mentioned.