Battling Harrington accentuates the positive
However, the 34-year-old Dubliner admitted playing poorly for the first three days of the Accenture World Match Play Championship in Carlsbad though he hung in exceptionally well to set up a quarter-final clash with Davis Love III.
This time, he was in tune with his game and even though outplayed for spells by Love whose long game he described as "awesome", Harrington was back to level pegging when the American produced the stunning 111 yards pitching wedge that spun into the hole for an eagle and brought the match to an end.
Harrington put a brave face on things. "It's actually not a tough way to lose. I was mentally expecting Davis to get up and down on the last and I'd have to hole mine to go to 19. I was prepared for that, but maybe not prepared for him holing out.
Davis was playing very well and I gave him three holes. I'm sure he gave me a few back, but I certainly couldn't afford to give him three.
"I played a bit better than I did in the last two matches but the short game was rough. You can't get away with that all the time."
Harrington added: "Taking time off during the winter will always be a priority, but I am guilty of a lack of discipline when I practised and I got into some bad habits.
"It is not the first time it has happened, but normally it is something I work through on my own without people watching.
"As a kid you are told how Ben Hogan and Jack Nicklaus practised every shot as if they were on the course. That is not easy to do.
"I should know better by now, but this is a good reminder so that I don't get it wrong when we get into the meat of the season. It's not a swing thing, it's a routine thing and something for Bob Rotella (his sports psychologist) rather than Bob Torrance (his coach).
"I get easily distracted on the course, when in the middle of the season I wouldn't. Even the quack of a duck got to me."
Over the next few weeks he hopes to improve his world ranking he is now 21st after the Accenture.
He picked up 201,579 for reaching the last eight without, surprisingly, making much of an impression in any of the major rankings. He is still 12th in both Ryder Cup points tables and 13th in the European Tour order of merit with 276,112 a long way behind leader David Howell on 938,813.
From a Ryder Cup perspective, the match play championship didn't do a whole lot for the morale of either side although the failure of any one of the 16 European starters to reach the semis must have disappointed Ian Woosnam.
Eight went out in the first round and they were followed after the second day by Miguel Angel Jimenez, Colin Montgomerie, Henrik Stenson, Bernhard Langer and Jose-Maria Olazabal, at least three of whom look sure of being at The K-Club in September. Luke Donald, another near certainty, bowed out in the third round followed by Howell and Harrington, in the quarter-finals.
Not that the Americans fared a whole lot better with Love going all the way to the lacklustre decider in which he lost to the little-known Aussie Geoff Ogilvy. Tom Lehman's commendable feat in reaching the semis means he is now contending for an automatic place in the US team and that modern-day rarity a playing Ryder Cup captain.
The vagaries of match play were never better demonstrated than on this occasion. The early elimination of Tiger Woods and Vijay Singh, the first and second ranked players in the world, didn't help and it would be difficult in the extreme to get enthused by a final involving Love and Ogilvy.
You are left to wonder what the sponsors think of it all with the tv ratings slumping dramatically once Woods set off for home!
Mention of television reminds one of the highly frustrating coverage or rather the lack of it provided by the American channel ABC of Harrington's participation over the four days. It seemed as if they were almost going out of their way not to show him, not even when he was staging the come back that eventually put paid to Singh's chances or in his clash with Love.
The European Tour continues this week with the Indonesian Open in Jakarta. Considering the controversy that followed Colin Montgomerie around after his infringement of the rules last year, it is unsurprising that he is staying away. The Irishmen in the field are Peter Lawrie, Damien McGrane, Michael Hoey and David Higgins while Stephen Browne is fourth reserve.
The European Seniors circuit also gets underway with Cork's Denis O'Sullivan preparing for his defence of the Barbados Open over the Royal Westmoreland course. O'Sullivan has been practicing in the US for a couple of months and recently got to play in a tournament on the US Champions Tour.
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