‘It’s magnificent out there. If anything, it’s too good’

Nobody could be happier than Pádraig Harrington that Royal Portrush is staging the 148th Open Championship this week but the two-time Claret Jug winner wishes his favourite golf course was not in quite such good nick.

Heavy rain last week has softened up this hallowed Antrim terrain and a state of orderly perfection pervades which, for a course with holes named Calamity and Purgatory, does not easily in Harrington’s perception of the emotions a links course should evoke.