K Club will be hottest ticket in town
“When you consider how many Irish people were there last week, 2006 is going to be unbelievable,” he stated on the eve of The Heritage tournament at Woburn.
“It’s hard to comprehend what it’s going to be like. I think the problem now is people getting tickets. I think they could fill it 10 times over - the whole country will get involved.”
The Irishman is short of sleep after the celebrations in Detroit, but he remembers only too clearly that two years ago, the week after the victory at The Belfry, he won the Dunhill Links championship at St Andrews.
The difference this time is that he has never played the Duke’s Course at Woburn before. The tournament was added to the tour schedule only a few months ago to honour the career of Ken Schofield, who retires as executive director at the end of this season after 30 years.
Harrington requires a top eight finish at Woburn to qualify for next month’s HSBC world match play championship at Wentworth, where the first prize of £1million is the biggest in golf.
Meanwhile, a tired looking David Howell, still on a high from helping Europe to their biggest-ever Ryder Cup win, yesterday admitted he was “not sure why I am here really, if truth be known.”
While others were never in the field the late withdrawals of Paul McGinley, Paul Casey and Thomas Levet have left only four of last week’s triumphant team playing in the £1.3millionevent - and Colin Montgomerie, Ian Poulter and Harrington have a definite purpose in taking part.
Montgomerie and Poulter have not yet qualified for next week’s £3.9m American Express world championship at Mount Juliet and need to climb into the top 20 of the European Order of Merit. They are currently 23rd and 21st respectively.
Howell is already certain of his place at Mount Juliet and cannot make Wentworth, so was easily able to take the week off and catch up on some sleep after all the celebrating.
Instead, however, he was out practicing for two and a half hours on Tuesday, then did some gym work and was up at 5am yesterday so he could make his tee-off time in the pro-am.
Such dedication is what he hopes will make the Oakland Hills experience the start of a long cup career.
Howell’s Saturday fourball victory with Paul Casey was highlighted as the most important point of the entire match, stopping America’s fightback attempt in its tracks.
But it was one of only two games the pair played and both lost their singles - Casey to Tiger Woods and Howell to Jim Furyk by a crushing six and four margin.
“I want to be more involved in the next one and play more of a part,” said Howell. “I was a bit in awe of Sergio, Lee, Pádraig, Colin and Clarkey. I was not surprised I didn’t play Friday and delighted I wasn’t playing Saturday afternoon, but these boys went out five times and were different class - awesome.”
Garcia and Westwood equalled the European record of 4½ points out of five, Harrington scored four out of five, Montgomerie three out of four and Clarke three and a half out of five. No American did so well.
Poulter also played only two games, losing with Clarke but then beating Chris Riley in the singles.
“I never want to miss another one again,” he said yesterday. “It was priceless. It was more than what I expected all week really, from start to finish. I did not realise what I was missing when I missed out last time by €18,000.
“I’m not saying I did not try then, but I would probably have done some things a little different. In terms of achievements in my career it was better than all my five wins. I learnt more about myself last week than I did in any of those.”
Poulter is convinced Montgomerie should rule himself out of the captaincy and target an eighth appearance as a player in Ireland instead. The Scot will be 43 when the K Club stages the 2006 match.
“At some stage he will be captain, so will Woosnam. Faldo as well,” commented Poulter. “But Colin will have to play again. He will still be in his prime. He is too good, way too good, to be considered for the captaincy.”
And Poulter is adamant that despite four wins in the last five matches Europe will be underdogs again. “Add up the world rankings. Whether we win or not is irrelevant. We’re hanging onto that tag - it’s perfect.”
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