Harrington’s sporting masterclass
The occasion was the 20th Irish Examiner/TV3 Junior Sports awards honouring 20 young Irish competitors who have excelled in their chosen fields.
Harrington was the latest in a long line of distinguished special guests who have graced the occasion and he received the warmest of receptions.
In a fortnight he will carry Irish hopes in the first major championship of the year, the Masters at Augusta National, but before that the Irish Examiner columnist chatted with the young aspirants, signed autographs and posed for photographs.
But he also pointed out that success rarely comes without a lot of hard work and dedication, a stance he is well entitled to adopt, given all he has put in to become the leading European golfer in the world.
"You have great careers ahead of you provided you keep a balanced outlook," Harrington told his audience. "It is very important that you enjoy it.
"If you don't, then it won't be worth it. Especially, always enjoy the good days like today. There are a lot of down days in sport. So make a point when you win to enjoy it, those are the memories that last for the rest of your days."
Another honoured guest, Sonia O'Sullivan, had earlier spoken of how wonderful it was to have talent as a young person.
Harrington elaborated on that point, stressing: "At senior level, most people succeed because of their work ethic. Talent alone won't do it. I myself and many other sports people will name those who were better than us as we grew up.
"They had more talent or the talent you see on the surface. But at senior level, it also comes down to a lot of commitment.
"At 15, I played a lot of sports like many others here today. At that age, I managed to get into an Irish boys golf team. That success, like your success today, was the driving force for me in choosing golf. I liked gaelic football and soccer as much as golf but golf was the one I was best at."
Padraig went on to confess that by the time he was 18, he wasn't sure exactly what career he should pursue.
Eventually he opted for accountancy because he was "good at figures". And he believes that decision was pivotal in launching him on the road to becoming one of the most successful sportsmen this country has ever produced.
"It gave me a second career," he stressed. "All my way through college, as I was studying for my exams, I told myself this isn't so important. There's always golf. That took the pressure off the exams. But more importantly, if I was having a bad day on the golf course, I always knew I could be an accountant.
"There was a second string to my bow. If you don't have that, it tends to make you obsessive about your sport. It tends to stop you becoming a rounded individual.
"If secondary student kids say they want to quit after their Junior Cert, they don't want to do the Leaving, I tell them, if you quit something as important as that, when the days get tough in your sport, you'll quit that as well."
By the time he was 21, Padraig related, he was beating guys who were turning pro and thought that maybe he should give it a good, too. Instead, he waited until he was 24 and all the time he was taking everything in and learning.
"Paul McGinley was a great role model for me," he declared. "He went to college, had a year off, turned pro and seemed to have the smoothest transition you could imagine.
"He was a little bit more mature. Some sports don't allow that, but if it does, you're better off developing in your own age group. If you can dominate your age group when you're out of form, then you know you're good. That sets you apart.
"Goal setting is very important. You do that yourself. But you've got to seek out the best advice and help, without listening to it blindly. You take what's good for you. The way to gain experience is by learning from others.
"Books if necessary books about the top people in your sport and books about the top people in other fields. You can take something from everything and if you can't, then it's the person reading the book and not the book itself that's wrong.
"It's always easier to learn from mistakes. When you have success, you go with the flow. When you make mistakes, you sit back and see why they happened."
Harrington sits down at his laptop every January and sets himself targets for the following 12 months. Some are perfectly obvious, the others he tends to keep to himself. But when the day finally arrives when he packs away the clubs for good, he doesn't conceal what he hopes his innermost thoughts will be.
"It's to be able to say when I finish up, 'yes, I put the effort in', I was fully committed and gave it my best shot," he said.
"I may win no majors or a few, but it could have been a disappointing career if I won one major when I should have won five. And it might never be a disappointing career if I never had the chance to win one. It's all about reaching your own personal level.
"When I was 18, I didn't know much. When I was 21, I thought I was experienced. Now I'm 32 and I realise I've got so much to learn. Last year was the first when I didn't feel like a rookie on tour. Every year I felt I was a little kid out there. But every day of the year, I'm learning little bits as I go along."
Looking around the room yesterday, it was gratifying to see so many of the award winners taking notes as Harrington spoke. They were not just listening, they were absorbing what he had to say, and they will be a whole lot better for that.
It's nice for us in the business to hear a leading sportsman have something nice to say about the media and this was one of those occasions.
Ireland "was different in that our media coverage tends to be exceptionally good," Harrington pointed out. "When you go out into the international stage, you realise how high a profile you have in Ireland.
"When I first went out on Tour, after my first good round, I went to the interviews and felt very comfortable doing them because from 15 years of age I was always doing interviews with the press. I was familiar with them, they made you comfortable and relaxed.
"You'd want to see some of my fellow competitors. They tend to alienate the media because they're afraid of them. They're scared. But in Ireland there's a great camaraderie with the press.
"We need them as much as they need us and it works very well."
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