Harrington hungry for more Majors

PÁDRAIG HARRINGTON has set his sights on winning more Majors in the wake of his compatriots’ recent successes at Pebble Beach, Congressional and Sandwich.

The three-time Major winner has been credited with sparking the latest surge in European Tour dominance of the Major championships.

Indeed, his back-to-back British Open victories in 2007 and 2008 as well as the PGA Championship at Oakland Hills that followed his second Claret Jug were cited by European Tour chief executive George O’Grady and 2010 PGA champion Martin Kaymer as having laid the foundations for consecutive Major wins in the last six by Tour members.

That three of those six wins have been by Irish golfers is not lost on Harrington as all four homegrown major winners prepare to tee off at Killarney Golf & Fishing Club this week for what promises to be a remarkable Irish Open, presented by Discover Ireland.

Harrington, though, has been struggling for form and has not won a tournament since the Iskandar Johor Open in Malaysia last October.

That might make someone envious of the success enjoyed by Graeme McDowell in the 2010 US Open, Rory McIlroy six weeks ago at the 2011 US Open and Darren Clarke’s Open victory at Royal St George’s but Harrington is not a begrudger.

“I can certainly use their wins as positive affirmation,” Harrington said.

“I’m delighted for them. If I’m only going to win three majors, it doesn’t take away anything if somebody else goes and wins 20 of them or 10 of them or loads of people win them. It’s still great to have won them.

“I wouldn’t begrudge anybody anything in this game. Especially guys who have worked hard at it. I’m delighted.

“I intend to win some more myself, and it would spur me on. But it’s not a competition on that front.

“Winning tournaments is good enough. You don’t really need to compete; I’ve got three and you’ve got whatever. “No, that doesn’t worry me. I’m happy with my three and hoping to make a few more.”

Harrington put his role as the spark for his contemporaries into contrast with Clarke’s experience of ploughing a lone furrow as something of a European standard bearer during the late-1990s and early 2000s.

“If you play golf with people and you know what they are like, you know what their personalities are like, and they go on to win a Major, it’s easier then to understand what it takes for you do that.

“There’s no doubt that me winning helped Graeme, and I don’t know if we helped Rory, I think that might have happened,” he said with a smile.

“But Martin Kaymer certainly said so, and I’m sure the lot of us (Irish) winning has helped Darren do it.

“At the time, Darren would have been at his peak, to use a phrase, he was out there on his own. Even Lee (Westwood) had gone at that stage. Monty was finishing up, Lee was there for a shorter period and all of a sudden you had Darren and maybe he was isolated and he didn’t have enough other players out there winning maybe in the peak of his career to help him cross that barrier.

“It seemed to have worked when you look at Woosie and Lyle and Langer and Olazábal winning on the back of Seve and Faldo; those wins came first. It would’ve been easier for Darren to win a major from 1995 to 2004 if other Europeans were doing it.”

Clarke and McIlroy’s presence in Killarney this week, alleviates a lot of pressure from Harrington’s shoulders but there are other anxieties for a player now ranked at 64 in the world. “I’m not that stressed as I would be coming into my national Open in other years.

“I am probably bringing some other stress in with me but not the stress of having to win this, no.”

Asked what that other stress might be, Harrington replied with a laugh: “I’d like to win a tournament. It’s been eight months or so. It would be nice to have some good performances. That would be my own stress. Besides that, there’s not too many external factors worrying me at the moment.”