GOLF: Time waits for no man, and so it was that Ernie Els flew out on his private jet - destination London - on Sunday night with the Claret Jug perched as additional, if welcome, baggage in the overhead locker. Philip Reid reports

For others, not least Padraig Harrington, there was not the tangible presence of that same piece of silverware, but, without a doubt, he and the others who had a chance to win the 131st British Open carried a different sort of baggage away from Muirfield.

Although he finished a shot out of making the four-way play-off, the reality is that this was an Open Championship that Harrington could and perhaps should have won.

Tee-to-green, no one played better golf. Over the four days, he hit more fairways than anyone else and reached more greens in regulation. On tough championship courses, these are usually the requisites that win titles.

Where Harrington fell down was with his putting, finishing only 74th of the 83 players who made the cut.

Putting statistics can sometimes cloud the issue, given that players who are missing greens are chipping closer to the hole than those who find the green in regulation. But the cruel part is that putting, from whatever distance, is usually one of Harrington's strongest points. On the European Tour last year, he won the putts per greens in regulation - averaging 1.723 - and for whatever reason found that the blade deserted him when he most needed it last weekend.

Of course, most people will chose to focus on what happened on the 18th hole, his 72nd hole of regulation play, rather than on all the missed putts, the ones that shaved the hole or lipped out, that went before.

There are two distinct schools of thought on how Harrington should have played that last hole. One, and the easy option, is that he should have taken the conservative route. That he should have used an iron, or his driving iron, to keep the ball in play and seek his par or give himself the outside chance of a birdie - playing a five-iron rather than a nine-iron or wedge approach, which was the difference between using iron or driver off the tee - and hoped that others slipped up.

The other viewpoint is that he was right to be aggressive, that, if he wanted to be the champion, then he had no choice other than to play driver off the tee in search of the birdie which he felt he needed to give himself a chance to make a possible play-off.

Hindsight is a great thing, to be sure. How was Harrington to know that a birdie would have won him the title? Or how was he to know a par would have been sufficient to get him into the play-off? That only materialised when Els buckled coming down the stretch - Harrington had finished his round - and left the South African with Thomas Levet, Steve Elkington and Stuart Appleby level on six-under-par.

And don't forget Gary Evans and Shigeki Maruyama, who, like Harrington, were also only one stroke out of a play-off.

Remember, Harrington was two shots behind Els at the time that he hit the final drive of his championship. Did he really have a choice? Indeed, it is worth noting that Harrington, who took the driver off the 18th tee, wasn't the only player in contention to make bogey on that finishing hole. Evans also made a bogey, and, unlike Harrington, he took a two-iron for safety but pushed it into the rough on the right.

Scott Hoch also used an iron off the tee, and bogeyed the 18th. And in the play-off, three of the four players - Appleby, Levet and Elkington - all bogeyed the hole. Only Levet took driver; the other two took irons.

So, really, who is to say what would have happened if Harrington had taken an iron instead of a driver? The truth of it all, and the beauty of sport, is that nobody truly knows what would have happened had he opted for the soft option.

During any major championship, there comes a time when a player must take on a daring shot - and, in Harrington's case, this was it. Anyone who has ever won a major has had to do the same. It is living with the consequences when such shots don't come off that can be the hard part.

For Harrington, that is unlikely to be a problem; he is a player of immense resilience. Two weeks ago, on the final hole of the European Open at the K Club, Harrington's approach to the green found water. Again, it was an aggressive play.

Anyone who felt that it would linger on his mind got their answer at Muirfield where, for four days, Harrington played better than most and, when the hard questions were asked, wasn't afraid to answer them.

Undoubtedly, what people will remember most is the 275th shot of the championship, that drive off the 72nd tee; and the Irish, knowing their golf, will debate it for a long, long time.

However, for Harrington, the hole he felt was more crucial was the ninth, a par five of 508 yards. On Saturday, in the worst of the weather, with 262 yards to the flag, he hit a three-iron approach that pitched dead on the fairway and came up just short of the green. He three-putted for par.

On Sunday, from a similar distance, he hit a one-iron shot that looked perfect but released through the green. His chip with an eight-iron came up six feet short. He missed the putt. And, over the four days, there were also four three-putts.

From Harrington's point of view, it is probably a good thing that he is straight back into the competitive arena. This week, he plays in the Dutch Open - and he does so as the eighth-ranked player in the world, which is Harrington's highest ranking.

Since breaking into the world's top-50 for the first time at the end of 1999, Harrington has made steady progress and now has his game at a level where he has reached the comfort zone in whatever championship he is playing.

After the Dutch Open, Harrington will take a two-week break before resuming tournament play in the US PGA championship at Hazeltine, the final major. Given that he has finished fifth (US Masters), eighth (US Open) and fifth (British Open) in the three majors to date, nobody can dispute that he is a genuine world class player.

The thing that really bugs is that opportunities to win majors come along so seldom that, when they do, it is best to clasp them with the grip of a drowning man.