Harrington signs new sponsorship deal

Golf star Padraig Harrington today shrugged off jokes that his career was in trouble after signing his biggest ever sponsorship deal with a company specialising in helping crisis-hit businesses.

The 37-year-old Dubliner has linked up with Florida-based FTI Consulting, advisers to recession hit bank Lehmann Brothers, claiming the partnership was ideally suited.

“A lot of the companies they go into are in crisis... but they are also helping people at the very top of what they do,” the three-time major winner quipped.

World number three Harrington won back to back Open championships in 2007 and 2008 followed by this year’s USPGA – the first European golfer to lift the trophy since 1930.

Sporting an FTI branded baseball cap and flanked by the Claret Jug and Wannamaker Trophy, Harrington declined to give too much away about his hopes for the year ahead.

“While I will set goals, I don’t like to set them out there and tell people,” he said.

“No point in giving the ammunition to be whipped with at the end of the year if you don’t meet those goals.

“Thankfully unlike these guys (FTI) I don’t have to make quarterly projections. I’m allowed to have longer term strategies.”

But he hinted: “So, If I was a betting man now I’d put my money on for the US Open. That would be the easiest in terms of focus for me.”

The figures involved in the massive sponsorship deal have not been revealed.

But asked if he was in crisis consultancy mode by turning to the global financial giant, Harrington said the pair were ideally suited.

“With my accountancy background, I play golf for a living and probably business is a bit of a hobby,” he said.

“These guys do business as a living and golf as a hobby, so it is a great fit and a great partnership.

Chosen for his integrity and sportsmanship, Harrington joined top executives at FTI, which works with banks and other companies such as the recession-hit Lehman Brothers in the US, for a marketing campaign in California last week.

The company will run adds during major tournaments for the next three years.

Asked where he would like to be at age 45, he claimed he’d like nothing better than to be coaching his son’s junior football team.

“But ... I’ll probably still be competing,” he said.

“My attitude to golf and my career is that as long as I’m striving to get better, I’ll be keen enough and enthusiastic enough to get out there and keep working.

“The day that stops is the day that you’re on the slippery slope to retirement.”

Despite his tournament wins, the golfing legend admitted to being hooked by the Olympics, branding it his sporting highlight of 2008.

And he credited his 2007 Open win at Carnoustie to his young son, who ran on to the 18th green and lifted his spirits ahead of the play-off.

“Every time you win a major or you win a big event, little things happen that make that week special that you don’t necessarily have under your control,” he said.

“When I won in Carnoustie my son running onto the 18th green changed my whole attitude.

“It changed me from thinking I had just lost, to he looked at me like I was the champion and I walked off the green feeling like I was the champion.”