Enthusiastic fans pile pressure on people’s champion Pádraig

IT meant that Harrington’s three under par total was essentially an unreachable target for the first round leaders; today he goes out in the last match for the first time in eleven Irish Open appearances enjoying a one stroke advantage and with the whole country willing him to complete the operation through the weekend.

“I know that the oohs and aahs of the people are because the fans want you to do well,” he accepts. “You can definitely sense their disappointment and even amazement at times if you miss a short putt or hit a poor shot. You’ll hear things like, how could he have done that sort of thing and you’re going, well it’s not that easy out here. I used to think they didn’t realise that but I know now it’s down to the enthusiasm of the people.

“It does add pressure, no doubt about it. Again, you have to take as much as you can from it and be disciplined enough not to worry about the crowd’s reaction if you do miss a short putt. You know, we do miss short putts. This is my Open, my national championship, and it’s number five on my wish list after the four majors.”

Even though he was joint second at Fota Island in 2001 and again at Baltray in 2004, Harrington has never gone really close to winning the tournament and he may never a better chance than this. Those closest behind him are largely unproven and it won’t have harmed his chances that fellow Ryder Cup players Lee Westwood and Paul McGinley took a bit of a hammering in yesterday afternoon’s storm tossed conditions and that Michael Campbell, the 2005 US Open champion, is already on his way home having finished two outside the cut mark of seven over par.

While all bets on a Harrington victory are either too short a price to be of any value or else have been cancelled altogether, it may be that he will rue the failure to capitalise on three gilt-edged chances. He three putted the 18th (his 9th), and missed four footers on both the 7th and 9th for birdies. So, in spite of a birdie at the 12th, he failed to take advantage of the par fives although he was perfectly entitled to claim that his game in general had been of a very high quality.

The birdies came at the 12th, where he got up and down from sand; at the 15th (twelve foot putt), short 16th where his eight iron tee shot hit the flag on the fly and dropped down to a yard; the 1st from fifteen feet and the short 4th with a thirty five foot putt.

“I went out thinking birdie and it was a better frame of mind from Thursday,” he said. “It was a fair golf course and probably ideal for me. The wind doesn’t bother me and I know I have an advantage in that sort of weather. I didn’t miss too many fairways so there were more birdie opportunities.

“I missed good chances at seven and nine but I like playing golf like that. I couldn’t even tell you what I did for the first sixteen holes which is tremendous. I didn’t put myself under any stress all day. The longest putt I holed for par was three feet, the longest I missed was the three putt on 18. It was just a nice, easy game.”

It remains to be seen how Padraig copes with the pressure of going out in the last match on the weekend of an Irish Open for the first time. “I’m not going to go out there thinking I’m in the last group and it’s the Irish Open. I will approach it as the same as any other round of golf whether I was at the top of the order or at the bottom. But I’ll still be out there tomorrow and the next day in a very important situation for me. It’s something I want to win very badly and it would be a great achievement for me.”