Padraig Harrington is not expecting any problems if Ireland happen to be drawn against the US in the Alfred Dunhill Cup starting at St Andrews on Thursday.
"As golfers, we will sort things out, face to face between ourselves," said the Dubliner who, with colleague Darren Clarke, was in the defeated European Ryder Cup team at Brookline nine days ago.
In an extended outburst last week, team member Davis Love singled out Harrington for special mention as the Americans responded to severe European criticism of their general behaviour, particularly the invasion of the 17th green. Love said: "You never heard Mark O'Meara complain that Padraig took 10 minutes to hit his second shot on 17. I'll bet you $1 million their strategy was to play slow because it would frustrate us."
Harrington rejected the suggestion that he took 10 minutes to play his approach. Nor would be accept that there was a deliberate attempt to play slowly. "I took longer to play the shot than in normal circumstances," he admitted. "But those were not normal circumstances."
He went on: "I think it was unhelpful that the whole affair was turned into a media extravaganza, with the use of selective comments. I would like to think that this week will be the start of a return to normality among the players. Golf will survive what happened at The Country Club."
The US will be represented this week by O'Meara, Payne Stewart and Tom Lehman. Both O'Meara and Stewart projected a conciliatory mood in the wake of the dramatic American victory, but Lehman was decidedly jingoistic, even to the point of declining to apologise for his incursion onto the 17th green.
A total of 16 countries are competing at St Andrews where South Africa retained the trophy last year by beating Spain 3-0 in the final. And the holders will again be represented by the triumphant trio of Ernie Els, David Frost and Retief Goosen.
Ireland, who had their now regular line-up of Harrington, Clarke and Paul McGinley, were effectively out of contention from the opening day last year when they were beaten 2-1 by the Spanish line-up of Santiago Luna, Miguel-Angel Jimenez and Jose-Maria Olazabal. For this week's event, Sergio Garcia replaces Luna in what appears to be a formidable Spanish line-up.
Lehman was a late inclusion in the American team and the only update from the original announcement concerns the New Zealand line-up. Frank Nobilo (153rd) and Phil Tataurangi (144th) are both concerned about their current status on the USPGA Tour and have made way for Michael Campbell and Michael Long. Greg Turner is the third member of the side.
Meanwhile, Harrington believes his current, sixth-place standing in the European Order of Merit is part of a rich dividend he is reaping from international team golf. "A noticeable difference in Cologne last Sunday, was how comfortable I felt in the highly pressurised situation of a playoff," he said.
Harrington went on: "My entire Ryder Cup performance was based on the experience of three Walker Cup appearances. In fact I would go so far as to say that I have never experienced pressure to compare with the Walker Cup at Portmarnock in 1991.
"People tend to make fun of my emphasis on the Walker Cup, but it happens to be true. It is a fact that all pressure in golf is relative. In that context, I firmly believe that the guy standing over a fourfoot putt to win the captain's prize, with 100 people looking on, is in a worse position than anything I faced at Brookline, simply because he is unlikely to have the experience to handle it."
His sudden-death defeat by Garcia in the German Masters consigned him to a fourth runner-up position this season, coming after the Italian Open, West of Ireland Classic and BMW International. But those statistics become decidedly impressive when one considers that Harrington was also fourth in the Malaysian Open and Turespana Masters and sixth in the German Open.
Obviously he would like to have recorded his second European Tour win, to add to a victory in the 1996 Spanish Open, but with a Ryder Cup debut and an appearance in the World Matchplay, even Harrington concedes he is making progress. "The most gratifying part of last Sunday's performance was that I shot a final round of 67," he said.
"Before this year, I had been tending to shoot par or one under when in contention to win a tournament. That may be all right if you happen to be defending a lead, but not if you're coming from behind."
Harrington went from Cologne to St Andrews, via London and had his luggage mislaid en route. So he had to content himself with watching the umpteenth re-run of Bilko on television yesterday morning until his luggage eventually arrived at midday. Then he was off to the practice ground.
