Write off Harrington at your peril

Writing off Pádraig Harrington is a bit like writing off Sylvester Stallone’s Rocky — an exercise that’s likely to blow up in your face as the hero takes yet another horrific pummelling but somehow manages to haul himself off the canvas.

Even after his latest hammering at the hands of the golfing gods in Connecticut on Sunday, where he closed with the second worst round of his professional career — a 10-over-par 80 to finish second last in the Travelers Championship — the overwhelming temptation to dismiss the three-time Major winner as yesterday’s man is tempered by a gnawing doubt.

Since he won the most recent of his three Majors in August 2008, Harrington has played 136 events on the PGA and the European Tours and won none of them.