Harrington happy to be a work in progress

DO NOT try to persuade Pádraig Harrington that the old adage of ‘if it ain’t broke don’t fix it’ is the sensible path to take for a golfer still basking in two major victories.

Everyone except his postman, apparently, seems to think, the 2008 Open and US PGA champion is in the midst of a terrible funk, having missed three cuts in nine events in the United States this year, including at last week’s Quail Hollow Championship in Charlotte, North Carolina.

Yet while his finishing positions and scoring reflect a slide for Harrington since the glories of last summer, the Irishman insists he is in the midst of a work in progress, not to return to form but to exceed the performances that have garnered three wins in the last seven major championships.

“Results haven’t been exactly what I wanted so far this year,” Harrington said last night in Florida ahead of this week’s Players Championship at TPC Sawgrass. “But a lot of that comes down to the fact, how will I explain this, and my mindset, I’ve done this many times throughout my career.

“If you look back, when you win something, especially when you have success, I see that as a reason to stop and start changing things to get better. I’m not trying to play as well as I played last year to win the two majors. I’m trying to play better than that.

“So when you win something, a lot of players will do this, and I’ve seen it, you take stock and all of a sudden you use it as a platform to get better, to move forward. And sometimes to get better and move forward, you work on your weaknesses. When you’re working on your weaknesses, sometimes your strengths get a little weak, and that’s what’s happened to me at the moment.

“Because I’ve been so focused on working on things, my good strengths have definitely not been as good. So like a lot of things, if you’re trying to move forward you often have to take a step back.

“I’m still in the middle of that process and I’ll still be there this week.”

That process is focused on Harrington’s swing: “I’m just working away, getting very bogged down in the technique and being concerned about that and trying to work through things. And when you’re doing that you lose the art of scoring a bit.”

Yet it has not stopped people reminding the Dubliner of his lack of success so far this season, although Harrington is resolved to resist temptation and revert to his former, winning game.

“I thankfully am more closeted than anybody else around,” he said. “I’m quite dogged in just going ahead and doing these things. The odd time I hear back from I suppose people that would be in my inner circle, you know, a little bit of questioning, let’s say, because they’re hearing it more than me.

“Like I’m sure people close to me at home, other people would be coming up and saying, well, ‘he’s not playing’ – like I get the postman, not the postman, because he’s a big fan, but I get the delivery man turning up and saying, ‘what happened to you last week, you’re not playing very well’ sort of thing.

“And that’s valid, because that’s what I would do if I was looking at a soccer player. I would be exactly like that.

“But I have to understand what I’m doing… I know the way I played was good enough to win major golf, but I don’t think I could play unless I was trying to get better.

“I always have to have that. There’s periods in my career where I put it on the back boiler for a while, and it usually comes after periods of a poor performance that you kind of get out there and go, ‘well, to hell with becoming a better player, let’s go for the short-term results’. But when you have the short-term results you look at the very long-term results and you start working on things and changing things.”

For Harrington, whose next target is June’s US Open at Bethpage Black on New York’s Long Island, that process continues this week and next, into the 3 Irish Open at Baltray, Co. Louth.

“Barring results, I’m fully convinced that I’m going on the right track, and everything is on track and going well. And I think I’m going to be physically better as a player and then I have to put my strengths, which are the mental side of the game, on top of that, and overall I should be a better player going forward.

“But it takes a little bit of time. I’m not expecting, I’m not writing off this year or anything like that. I’m still very hopeful that I’ll be in top form for the US Open.”