Harrington refuses to get downbeat

IF one were to search for flaws in Pádraig Harrington’s mental approach to the game of golf, poor course management would figure well down the pecking order.

And yet it was his failure to think the situation out clearly when things were going against him at the par five 16th at Firestone on Sunday that almost certainly cost him victory in the WGC-Bridgestone Invitational.

Given that the water protected green was more than 600 yards away and he was leading Tiger Woods by a shot, he hardly needed to play the driver off the tee. And having carved it into the woods on the right, the placement of the recovery rather than the distance he achieved with it was certain to be absolutely crucial. By then, though, Harrington and Woods had been put on the clock and the need to speed things up became an imperative.

Harrington chose a five iron, knocked it through the fairway into an awful lie beside a bunker. Woods was also in trouble off the tee and after chipping out compounded the Irishman’s troubles by knocking a majestic eight iron from 180 yards to within six inches of the hole. Everything unravelled after that for Harrington who found water with his fourth shot and eventually had to chip and putt for a triple bogey eight.

In the end, he was forced to settle for a share of second place with the fast finishing Robert Allenby as many as four shots behind the Woods who was setting yet another record by winning his seventh tournament over the same Firestone course. Harrington’s consolation – and it is considerable given the poor season he has suffered up to now – is that he has moved up seven places to 10th in the world rankings, has qualified for the Barclays tournament, the first on the lucrative Fed-Ex Cup series on the US Tour and is now 20th on the European Tour’s Race to Dubai order of merit.

Furthermore, Harrington isn’t one to feel sorry for himself or to dwell on negatives and within minutes of the finish on Sunday, he reassured everyone: “I think it’s pretty much out of my system now. You know, I’ll probably be a better player because of it. So that’s a good thing. You learn from these things. I’ve now got the US PGA this week, bigger things ahead of me. So at the end of the day, when I start hitting shots tomorrow, this will be forgotten about. I’ll certainly not be too happy going to bed tonight, I’ll be thinking about it. But when I get up and start working tomorrow, it will be all in the back of my mind.”

Typically, he didn’t complain about being put on the clock, simply accepting that “there are rules and the players make the rules and we’ve got to apply them. If you’re put on the clock, you always want to be nicely in position so you’re not having to think too much. I got out of position with my tee shot, my second shot and my third shot and just got myself out of the zone.”

And his explanation for the way he played the 16th?

“If you’re going for the green in two you’ve got to hit it right down the right-hand side,” he said. “I wasn’t unhappy to have missed the fairway right. I rushed my second shot chipping it out with a five iron and didn’t hit a good shot and obviously left myself in trouble. I hit a pretty decent third shot. Again, I had an awkward fourth shot. I had to go after it and probably rushed that a bit as well. That was the end of that. Tiger hit a great third shot but that didn’t affect me at all. I was one shot ahead. I was in good position at that stage. The shot that cost me was my second shot. I’m one ahead. I knocked it out of position. I won’t let it happen again.”

Harrington and Woods have gone face to face several times in the past. Apart from the Ryder Cup, in which Tiger leads 3-2, Pádraig can look back with satisfaction at showing the world number one the way home in his own Target World Challenge back in 2002 and the 2006 play-off in the Dunlop Phoenix in Japan. Woods got his own back on this occasion but as Harrington commented as they shook hands on Sunday, “we’ll do battle many times again”.

Hardly the words of a man scared of a given situation and he has an immediate opportunity of living up to them in this week’s US PGA, the last major championship of the year. Woods and Harrington have been drawn together with Rich Beem, the winner at Hazeltine in 2002, in the first two rounds. Doubtless, it’s something he could well do without considering the inevitable hullabaloo surrounding Woods every time he tees his ball up and most especially in a major championship.

There’s also, of course, the possibility that such a busy and concentrated few days in Akron will have taken their toll, a point not lost on Harrington.

“Having an adrenalin-filled week of holding the lead all the time and doing all the interviews and all that is not the best preparation for the PGA,” he concedes. “I’ll probably just take it a little bit easier for the three practice days. I certainly won’t be playing 54 holes over the next three days. I’ll probably just take it easy and rest up, working on the principle that if I’m to retain my title, I’ve got to be fresh on Sunday.”