Pádraig Harrington sounds the same in timbre but the tone appears different, one of a man who understands the value of pausing, however briefly, to celebrate. Abstinence makes for a more appreciative palate when tasting success.
The man with an unparalleled work ethicin professional golf, a three-time Major champion, has emerged from the mental and physical torment of a misfiring game with a recalibrated outlook.
Many draw a line from his victory at the 2008 US PGA Championship to Monday’s triumph in the Honda Classic, consigning his two victories on the Asian Tour and the Grand Slam tournament (2012), to the smallprint.
Comfort Periodically scratching a seven-year itch in terms of those victories provided some comfort only because, as he said, it proved that on the four occasions he got into contention, he won. There's no doubt that others, Tiger Woods for example, will look at what Harrington achieved and maybe draw a little inspiration, just as the 43-year-old Dubliner had done from a recent event.
“Retief Goosen being in contention in LA was a big positive for me. I was a contemporary of Tiger Woods, we started our careers around the same time and he could be looking at me thinking, ‘Paddy had a slump and he has come back’. It should help him if he sees other people do things.
“Hopefully, it could be a positive thing for Tiger. He’s got so much ability he doesn’t need to be back where he was winning and winning Majors. He’s got plenty of game and talent to win with what used to be his B game. I can see him back but it’s not easy.
“People come out and say ‘we can fix Tiger in five minutes or 10 minutes’ but that’s not the case. You can give all the advice but at the end of the day something has to click inside and they have to believe it. And that can be a long and a hard process.”
Harrington has postponed until next week the minutiae of reworking this year’s schedule, rewriting his season’s goals and allowing his thoughts to linger on a return to Augusta National.
Itinerary
The victory in the Honda Classic means not only an invite to the Masters but some high profile and lucrative World Championship events. It adds five tournaments or so to his itinerary but others will have to be cut. He played 35 last year but approximates that it will be about 32 this season.
Sitting in Dun Laoghaire Golf Club at a photoshoot for Dunnes Stores, one of his sponsors, he held forth on a number of topics, one of which is his well documented love for the Ryder Cup. “I got a text from Darren, pre and post (Honda Classic win). The Ryder Cup is a huge deal to me. It (the win) does have an effect. It pushes me into the bigger events that get me the ranking points that will get me there.
“So yeah, it does have an effect and it will have a bigger effect on my challenging to get into the top 15 to get into the Olympics. So those two things would be down the road and this is a big stepping stone. I had to get past this first hurdle.”
He had his doubts on what had proved be a treacherous journey. “Absolutely. When you’ve had the yips, that’s a big doubt. That’s a hard thing to get through, really hard. It gave me confidence that I did get through it. There were lots of doubts but the big upside for me is I love golf. I wouldn’t do anything else.
“The biggest challenge is I found something in my game that I have to keep fresh. I hit shots that were really pure. Can I hit more of the good shots? That’s the challenge.”
