Harrington celebrates birth of baby boy

Padraig Harrington is celebrating the arrival of his first child – although he missed the birth as he was on the other side of the Atlantic.

The Irishman is now the proud father of a boy after wife Caroline delivered in hospital last night in Dublin's Mount Carmel hospital, soon after Harrington had finished playing in the NEC World Championship in Akron, Ohio.

He received a text message on his mobile phone on the 13th hole of his final round in which his wife warned him she was heading off to hospital.

Harrington was scheduled to arrive home about 7am today – by which time he already knew the good news.

“I’m on my way back home at the moment with the good news that my wife Caroline has had a baby boy,” he said on his personal website, www.padraigharrington.com

The baby had been due last Monday, but when doctors said it looked like being a week late Harrington made the decision not to fly back after the United States PGA Championship, but to continue on from Rochester, New York, to Akron.