Harrington’s focus issues
The three-time major winner left Florida last night following an interesting albeit unsuccessful week at The Players Championship at TPC Sawgrass in which he shot rounds of 72, 72, 74 and 72 to finish well down the leaderboard of the strongest field in golf.
As has so often been the case with Harrington the real action of note has taken place not on his scorecard but between his ears.
Last week was exceptional in that regard, even by Harrington’s standards. The reigning Open and US PGA champion revealed his trusted inner circle – wife Caroline, caddie and brother-in-law Ronan Flood and sports psychologist Bob Rotella – had staged something akin to an intervention in order to get him to kick his self-confessed addiction with his search for the perfect swing.
Concentrate on your strengths they told him on Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday nights and Harrington agreed. To get off the habit, though, the Dubliner must go through a few more hoops that he estimates will take four weeks to negotiate and that included The Players and this coming week’s Irish Open at Baltray.
Asked if his week had been productive, important or interesting, following his final-round, level-par 72, Harrington last night said: “I suppose it’s been all of those.
“Obviously now I’ve got a tournament coming up next week so I’ve got to start thinking about that. Every week you’re learning something and going forward a little bit. At the moment I’m kind of in-between thinking and not thinking about it, in-between working on it and letting it happen.”
Harrington did concede he had made progress. “I am further on in the sense that I can see that there’s light at the end of the tunnel,” he said, although he added his focus was still lacking. The problem when you’re not 100% focused is that you do make errors..”
Asked if the supportive home crowd at Co Louth could help Harrington regain that focus, the Dubliner said it would not.
“Unfortunately not,” he said. “That doesn’t happen to me, I’m not that type of guy. It takes me a while to get focused but I do know how to getfocused. It’s not something you can switch on like a light. You can some days but that’s very hit and miss.”
What is always there, though, is Harrington’s commitment to staying positive. “It’s all good, why wouldn’t you (stay positive) out here? No matter how bad it gets for me on the golf course, it ain’t bad.’’
The other Irish had gone home in stages from TPC Sawgrass, Rory McIlroy missing the halfway cut following rounds of 74 and 77, while Graeme McDowell was a victim of the 54-hole cut having shot a third-round 77.
That left Harrington who started the day at two over par and began his round brightly with birdies at the second and fourth holes.
The backward step came when he double bogeyed the par-four seventh and then scored a bogey six at the ninth to make the turn in 37, one over par for the day.
Harrington got back on track with birdies 10th and 11th but missed a birdie putt on 16, then three-putted the par-three 17th, missing from inside four feet, and having played a great approach shot to 18, missed another birdie opportunity from 11 feet on the way to a level-par 72 to finish at two over.
“I’m disappointed with 16, 17, 18,” he said. “I had three chances there and that would have been a very nice finish in that sense, but they’ll go in another day when it’s more important.”
The Players was still very important to a growing band of contenders at the business end of the tournament as Germany’s Alex Cejka frittered away his five-shot overnight lead.
Cejka dropped five shots in the first six holes with playing partner in the final group Tiger Woods also slipping up. Woods fell to four under after seven holes while Henrik Stenson of Sweden moved into the lead at eight under with a birdie at the ninth.
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