Harrington must arrest rankings slide

THE new world rankings are remarkable, not so much for the fact that England’s Lee Westwood remains number one for the 14th successive week, but that Ireland’s Pádraig Harrington has fallen all the way back to 32nd.

Harrington reached a career high of third when he retained the Open Championship at Hoylake in 2008, followed by his victory in the US PGA Championship at Oakland Hills. However, it’s been largely downhill ever since. He began 2010 in fifth place, but little went right in the early months of that year and last September he dropped from 20th to 22nd, the first time he was outside the top 20 in four years.

Victory in the low-key Johor Open in Malaysia helped to redress the trend for a while but he still ended 2010 in 23rd place. In the meantime, however, Harrington has drifted back another nine spots to 32nd. This is best reflected by finishes of 16th, missed cut, 39th, 7th, disqualified and 58th since the win in Johor. Luck hasn’t always favoured him, most especially his disqualification as the result of a technical breach of the rules in Abu Dhabi the other week after he had signed for a promising first round of 65.