Harrington to lead the ‘green’ charge

THE MASTERS remains the only major championship yet to be claimed by an Irish golfer but there are grounds for optimism that may change on Sunday evening.

Having tied for 8th in Houston on Sunday and improved his world ranking by two places (36th to 34th) Pádraig Harrington looks best equipped to lead our three-pronged challenge at Augusta.

Graeme McDowell has dropped a spot in the rankings (4th to 5th), but is very comfortable competing at the highest level with a string of fine achievements to his credit.

Meanwhile, Rory McIlroy (out from 8th to 9th in the rankings) is considered our best bet by the bookmakers with a game well suited to Augusta National.

However, a close examination of how the Irish have fared at Augusta since Ronan Rafferty became the first professional from our shores to tee it up in the Masters will sound a more sobering note.

Rafferty made the first of two appearances in 1990, performing creditably to tie for 14th and earn a return invitation for the next year when he missed the cut.

Fellow Irishman David Feherty qualified in 1992 and tied for 52nd. After that, there was a six year gap until 1998 when Darren Clarke broke 70 twice over the weekend to finish joint 8th. However, in nine other starts, he didn’t manage another top 10.

The first of Harrington’s 11 successive Masters tournaments began in 2000. Since then he has enjoyed three top tens — 5th in 2002; 7th in ‘07 and 5th again in ‘08.

Paul McGinley contested in 2002 when he set himself a target of making the top 14 to be invited back the following year. He missed out by one stroke and tied 18th. In his other Masters (2006) he missed the cut.

McDowell made his Augusta debut in 2005 and was restricted to 36 holes. He was back four years later and tied for 17th before again missing out on the weekend last year.

McIlroy arrived on the scene to plenty of media fanfare in 2009 only to become embroiled in controversy after a first round bunker incident at the 18th almost led to disqualification.

He was three under par at the time and the hole cost him a triple bogey seven so he did well to eventually tie for 20th. However, failure to make the cut last year hasn’t damaged his cause with bookies quoting him at 22/1 with Harrington 28/1 and McDowell 33/1.

McDowell has the best recent record of the trio but there is a belief he doesn’t have the length to cope with a golf course playing its full 7,435 yards after heavy rain. He has planned accordingly, however: “I’ve always been a natural drawer of the ball but I’ve been trying to hit the other shot so much that it got to a point where I wasn’t hitting the draw all that well. It is just a case of getting back to the old swing.

“The draw is something I can play and I’m happy it is there going into the Masters as Augusta is a course where you have to draw the ball. Also, I think I go armed with a better short game, that’s been something I have concentrated hard on for the last few months. I don’t think you can win Augusta without a short game.”

McDowell ranks McIlroy along with Phil Mickelson and Bubba Watson as his chief fancies for the green jacket. “Rory has a great pair of hands around the greens. He says he doesn’t work too hard on his short game but it looks pretty good to me. His game is tailor-made for Augusta. It’s scary what the guy can achieve.”

And yet, I feel it may be Harrington who leads the Irish challenge.

Unnecessarily dropping shots and running up double and even triple bogeys with irritating regularity has cost Harrington dearly since his US PGA triumph in 2008. But Houston demonstrated that he is far from a spent force and hopefully lent an edge to his game that has been lacking of late and which will help get him into contention into the last nine on Sunday evening.