ALTHOUGH Pádraig Harrington still has his fate in his own hands, and could put an end to any mathematical ifs and buts as far as his place on Europe’s Ryder Cup team is concerned with a strong – even winning – performance at this week’s US PGA Championship here at Whistling Straits, the Dubliner yesterday gave his strongest indication yet that he would be willing to miss out on the final counting event at Gleneagles and gamble on getting a ‘wild card’ pick, rather than criss-cross the Atlantic and disrupt his planned schedule.
As things stand, Harrington is marginally outside an automatic place on the team. But with the top four qualifiers coming off the world points list – a process which concludes with the US PGA – and the next five qualifying from the European points list after the Johnnie Walker championship later this month, before captain Colin Montgomerie names his three ‘wild card’ selections, it now seems that the three-time Major champion is set to play the Barclays championship, the first of the season-ending FedEx Cup series, rather than make the trip back.
With his mind very much on this week’s US PGA, Harrington is aiming to kill two birds with the one stone – to contend in the season’s final Major, and to also put himself into a position where his absence from Gleneagles is immaterial.
Critically, it would seem that other players – primarily Paul Casey and Justin Rose – who are in a similar position to that of Harrington, in that they are also currently outside the automatic places on the Ryder Cup team for Celtic Manor, are also inclined to play the Barclays event and hope rather than expect a pick from Monty.
As Casey has pointed out, travelling back and forth across the Atlantic would hardly be the best preparation for the Ryder Cup.
Harrington yesterday admitted his position remained precarious, making the point, “nobody who doesn’t qualify automatically deserves to be in the team. If you don’t make it on merit, you are asking for a little bit of favour.
“I want to try and make the team and qualify. That would be my goal this week. The goal, to be honest, is to get in on the world ranking points, because that ends in a week’s time. That’s the one to make it in on. Even if I pass Jimenez in the (European) money, he could jump by me in the last event of the year. The goal is to play well this week and sort it out.”
He continued: “It’s a very awkward situation, no doubt about it. I saw the last time round, one of the players (Ian Poulter) who got picked didn’t come back to the last event. I was kind of saying, ‘well, he should have’. But now, I am in the same situation and I’ve a commitment to do a Special Olympics clinic that week and I don’t want to let them down (during Barclays), commitments to my own schedule, and it puts me under pressure for that pick.
“Now, interestingly enough, I have talked to some of the other guys who would (potentially) be looking for a pick and they are all saying they are playing Barclays. It’ll be a case of, who will jump ship and be the odd man out?
“But the guys are going to stick to that . . . I’ve a commitment to the Special Olympics and I’m going to try to qualify this week and have nothing to worry about.”
Harrington is currently seventh on the world points list, 36 points behind Luke Donald who occupies the fourth and final automatic place. He is one place – just €13,246 – outside an automatic place on the European money list.
There are three counting events remaining by that route – the PGA, next week’s Czech Open and the Johnnie Walker – but Harrington’s body language and words yesterday would indicate he is putting his trust in a strong PGA performance to book an automatic place.
