My best is yet to come, roars hungry Harrington

PÁDRAIG HARRINGTON insists his appetite for winning majors is stronger than ever and that, as he prepares for the Masters in two weeks, his best golf is still to come.

The three-time major champion is striving to add a green jacket from Augusta National to the two Open Championships and one US PGA title he won in a glorious 13-month period between July 2007 and August 2008.

And as he attended the official opening of the ‘Harrington Room’, an impressive collection of memorabilia from his career, at his home club Stackstown overlooking Dublin yesterday, the 39-year-old surveyed the display cabinets.

“I think there is room for them to squeeze one or two more in,” he joked.

Results over the last two seasons have suffered as Harrington made several swing changes, with his only win since the 2008 US PGA at Oakland Hills coming last October at the Iskandar Johor Open in Malaysia.

The patchy form led to some pundits to question whether Harrington has another big win in him but he was happy to set the record straight.

“I wouldn’t be that type of guy to be complacent,” Harrington said. “I could sit back and look back — and maybe I will in time — and say, ‘that was great, I won X amount of majors’, but that’s not me at the moment. Ninety-nine per cent of my preparation these days is trying to actually stop myself from driving too hard.

“So a huge amount of my focus is not overdoing things and that would be the opposite of that. So I am exceptionally motivated.”

To illustrate his point, Harrington recalled playing a practice round with six-time major winner Nick Faldo back in 2002 and watching the Englishman, in declining form, still grind his way around the course.

“At the end of nine holes I said, ‘you were really grinding there’, and he said, ‘yeah, I’d love to win just one more’.

“No major winner ever...they always want one more and they think that will be the one that makes them happy. But the one more won’t make them happy, they want two more then.

“But I’m in the prime of my playing career. I believe I’m going to play my best golf going forward. I absolutely think that the best is yet to come.

“It would be hard to cap the results I’ve had but we’ll see if we can do that. There’s no point in trying to stand still or hold on to what you had because you don’t know what you had, if you know what I mean.

“It’s not something that’s tangible enough to go out the following week and keep it. That’s not the way golf goes. You have to keep trying to improve.”

Harrington’s best finish of 2011 was his tie for 10th place at the WGC-Cadillac Championship two weeks ago but despite missing the cut last week at the Transitions Championship the Dubliner said he was far from worrying about his form.

“If I talk about the season so far, it’s not gone as well as I would have liked in terms of results. If I talk about how I’m feeling about my game, I’ve never been happier.

“Obviously it would be nice to be showing some results. I certainly played well at Doral, I didn’t play great the first day at Transitions, I played great the second day. Yeah, I could do with some results, there’s no doubt about that but saying that I’ve probably never been as comfortable with my game ever. So on that front I’m happy.”

Of that apparent contradiction, Harrington explained it was a matter of patience.

“There would be a contradiction in terms of the short-term. I don’t believe there will be a contradiction over a period of time.

“If you’re happy with your game, the results will follow. Always it’s harder to push them over a shorter period of time. So far this year I haven’t had my week or weeks. I’m waiting patiently and looking forward to every opportunity I get to play.”

Harrington will play one more tournament before heading to the Masters, which begins two weeks from today on April 7.

He will put in his final preparations in Texas at the Shell Houston Open, starting a week today, and admitted the outcome was “not hugely important” in the grand scheme of things.

“I don’t actually know how to take next week,” he said. “I know I need to go and play as always. I don’t know if I need a long arduous week, so I’m not 100% sure.

“Definitely, as always, I need to be at the golf course looking at my game there and doing that sort of work.

“But the likes of Houston, you want a nice, comfortable, building week where things are nice and solid. If things go your way you would take your chances and go all out to win but it would be pleasing to have a solid week.

He added: “It would be pleasing to have a week like I had in Doral, where I just played nice golf, solid, didn’t exactly do anything spectacular in terms of holing putts or getting breaks because you want those things to go your way in the week of a major.”