‘I created some of that emotion’: Pádraig Harrington’s rivalry with Sergio Garcia was clear on Sky commentary

It was somehow fitting that Sergio Garcia’s Major breakthrough came in a tournament where Pádraig Harrington was absent, writes Stephen Barry.

The Irishman stood between Garcia and a Major title in the 2007 Open Championship, where Garcia missed a ten-foot putt for victory, and the 2008 US PGA Championship, where the Spaniard again surrendered a lead to Harrington.

Later that year, Harrington said: “We have zero in common, bar the fact that we both play golf. He is the antithesis of me, and I am the antithesis of him.”

Harrington missed out on his chance to secure a last-minute spot at The Masters this year due to neck surgery but was greenside at Augusta in the Sky Sports studio as Garcia finally broke his Major duck.

Harrington said: “It’s brilliant for him. You can see the emotion on him, and I maybe created some of that emotion, so I’ll take some credit for that.”

At the top of the show, the three-time Major winner quipped that his heart wouldn’t be picking Sergio, to much hilarity in the studio.

On Saturday, Harrington was asked to address the “alleged undercurrent of animosity” between the pair.

“There’s certainly an undercurrent, definitely,” said Harrington.

Brutal honesty from Harrington pic.twitter.com/YwCMYfMdD3

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“Look, we’re different guys. Everybody works in a workforce and if you had 150 guys in your workforce, there’s some guys you get on with and there’s some guys you don’t necessarily.

“We’re quite different in the way we go about things. He’s very talented. (It) looks like it’s always come easy to him – I say ‘looks like it’ because clearly it hasn’t come easy to him.

“I’m the sort of guy who grinds it out and works at it so we come at in different ways, and we’ve been rivals for years. Obviously, our Majors probably didn’t help anything, the ones I won, but before that we were rivals.

“We get on well and, believe it or not, it’s the Ryder Cup that keeps us getting along. At the end of the day, every two years the Ryder Cup brings us together. We end up hugging at the end of the week. We play table-tennis. So without the Ryder Cup I think we’d be further apart.”