Harrington must avoid costly blunders

CONSIDERING his ongoing tendency to run up large numbers at one or more holes in almost every event he contests, Pádraig Harrington can hardly be looking forward to the Tournament Players Championship at the water-strewn Sawgrass course in Jacksonville, Florida.

The reigning British Open and US PGA champion played some beautiful golf in each of his last two tournaments, the Masters at Augusta in early April and the Quail Hollow Championship in Charlotte, only to spoil it all with some dreadful blunders.

True, he did have to accept a freakish penalty shot when his ball was blown by a gust of wind on the 15th green in the second round of the Masters after he had addressed it a few moments earlier. But there was no excuse for the quadruple bogey on the third day that effectively ended whatever hope he had of completing the much publicised “Paddy Slam”. The following day he ran up a seven at the ninth although there was the extenuating circumstance of a two-shot penalty when his tee ball stayed up in one of the towering pines to the left of the fairway.