Harrington takes aim at US Open

Padraig Harrington will today attempt to come through just the second qualifier of his career as he bids to book his ticket for next month’s US Open via a 36-hole international qualifier at Walton Heath.

The three-time major winner’s five-year exemption US Open following his victories in the 2008 Open and US PGA championships ended last summer but Harrington has an opportunity to book a spot at Pinehurst. Having finished down the field in the BMW PGA Championship at Wentworth yesterday, following a closing one-over-par 73, the Irishman headed across Surrey to Walton Heath.

“Get over there, hit a few putts and chips, get the pace of the greens,” Harrington said. “Maybe play a few holes.”

The experience will be an unfamiliar one for Harrington, having last played in a qualifier in 1999 at Panmure in Scotland to get into The Open at Carnoustie.

“It’s the only qualifier I’ve ever played. Never played one as an amateur and never on any other occasion as a pro.

“I played 36 holes [in one day] as an amateur so I’m well aware that you’ve got to get as much rest throughout the day. Eat on the golf course and have a very light lunch, that sort of stuff. Hopefully, fatigue doesn’t matter. Hopefully I play well enough that I’m still focused coming down the stretch.”

Harrington will be keen to find the solution to his putting woes at Wentworth over the last three rounds. He dismissed a return of the yips that had hampered him last year but added: “It’s not like there’s an empirical answer. Maybe there is. It’s 48, isn’t that the answer to life in the Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy. They said the answer was 48 but they didn’t understand the question. I must use that a bit more: 48!

“No, I just didn’t putt well. I was decelerating on the putts. Maybe it was the slow greens did that to me. Your stroke gets a little longer… it could have been as simple as that. Let’s put it down to that.”