Harrington hopes to rekindle major flame

IT says a lot for the strength of the game in Ireland that we have four players involved in the US Open starting at Bethpage Park this morning.

Normally, Pádraig Harrington would stand out as our greatest hope of capturing the trophy but for very apparent reasons that is not currently the case. Indeed, the bookmakers rate 20 year-old Rory McIlroy a more likely prospect, 35-1 as against Harrington’s 40-1, with Graeme McDowell, 80-1, and Darren Clarke, 225-1, regarded as each-way bets at best.

The year so far has been a disaster for Harrington, a man who was master of all he surveyed after landing his third major championship in 13 months last August. At that point, he was ranked number three in the world and everybody looked excitedly to the Masters the following Augusta as he attempted to complete what the Americans dubbed a “Paddy Slam”.

Even as early as April, however, it was clear Harrington had problems. Apart from sharing 5th place in Abu Dhabi in February, he has had a steady run of poor results on both sides of the Atlantic until the stage has now been reached where he has missed the cut in four of his last five tournaments and six in all in 2009 along with a first round defeat by American Pat Perez in the first round of the World Match Play.

His two most faithful supporters are his wife, Caroline, and caddie Ronan Flood, and even they have publicly expressed their disappointment at how swing changes he has been working on have had such anadverse affect on his results.

Even then he persevered and yet there wasn’t the semblance of improvement. And this week he was obliged to acknowledge that “the results are very much a reflection of how I’ve played. I certainly haven’t made things happen. I didn’t intend to drag it so far into the season”.

He promises to go out there this week and let the clubs do the talking without any distracting thoughts about technique and so on. If he does then we could well see a return to the form that earned him three majors in the last two years.

It was good to hear Harrington express his liking for the boisterous New York galleries, stressing that “the more noise around the golf course, the better for me. It adds a buzz when there’s noise reverberating around the course. It’s nice to play in that atmosphere and I definitely think it was a positive last time”.

Harrington finished 8th here seven years ago but a double bogey six in near darkness on the final Sunday was largely responsible. He performed superbly over the four days and never more so than in shooting 68 in the most appalling conditions in the second round.

Generally speaking he has shown a liking for this event. In his previous 11 championships, he had a scoring average of 72.84 which amounts to 100 over par. His lowest score of 67 came in the second round at Torrey Pines and came on top of a 78 on the first day.

Many believe Rory McIlroy has the potential to become another Tiger Woods and while that must surely be overstepping the mark, the 20 year-old from Holywood has an aura about him and looks capable of winning or certainly challenging every time he tees it up.

His victory in the Dubai Desert Classic moved him to 17th in the world rankings but hardly registered on the American radar. Paul Azinger was one of those to make little of what he was doing but was made to eat his words as McIlroy reached the quarter-finals of the World Match Play and claimed top 20 finishes in four successive events including the Masters.

“I felt I played well at Augusta but this is my first US Open and I’ve never experienced anything like it before”, he said. “I could tell myself that top 20 would be good but I want to do better than that without knowing what to expect when Thursday comes or what the course will be set up. But if I play the way I know I can, I can shoot under par”.

Graeme McDowell has come here with his confidence reasonably high on the back of a closing 63 in the St Jude Classic in Memphis last weekend that sent him racing through the field into a share of 8th place. McDowell has the knack of shooting low in major championships but his body language yesterday suggested there is no way he will repeat his 66 in the first round of the British Open at Hoylake in 2006 or even the 71 that put him at the head of affairs in the US Open at Oakmont the same year.

Darren Clarke, however, seems to lack self-belief so essential and logic suggests the best he can hope for is some invaluable competitive activity on Saturday and Sunday.