BRITISH OPEN COUNTDOWN:STUBBORN AS a mule, this Harrington fella. Yesterday, as the clock ticked down on his defence of the Claret Jug, the Dubliner - who has worked his way into a fine old mess with his swing, resulting in five straight missed cuts on tour – was asked if, given the opportunity, he would backtrack on the entire process of rebuilding a swing that had been good enough to win three majors.

“No, I would never go back. That would be admitting defeat. I’m stubborn, I’m dogged,” replied Pádraig Harrington, who has accepted that time has caught up with him in his efforts to claim the perfect swing ahead of tomorrow’s first round of the 138th British Open over the Ailsa links.

“I can’t say with any certainty I am going to be ready on Thursday afternoon . . . I just have to go hell for leather at it.”

Harrington’s swing thoughts would confuse the most competent of psychoanalysts. Suffice to say, the work started in the dark days of the winter and, like so many building projects scattered around the Irish countryside, remains incomplete. In the golfer’s case, though, it is not due to any neglect. The opposite in fact, as he has spent hour upon hour – often into the early hours of the morning under floodlights in his back garden – obsessively working and seeking to find the cure.

Even here, at Turnberry on the south-west coast of Scotland, he committed the ultimate no-no in the week of a major. On Monday, Harrington spent six hours on the range seeking the critical key and adopting further change in attempting to ensure the swing he brings to the tee will operate on autopilot.

“Yeah, I worked with Bob (Torrance) yesterday and changed a few little things, which is never great going into a tournament. It’s hard to make it automatic by Thursday. I’m not as ready as I could be.

“The last thing you want to do is six hours of practice on a Monday, you should be tapering down the week of a big event, (but) I’m happy to have done it and I’m happy going forward.”

This was Harrington at his most relaxed, his most candid. After giving his official press conference, he sat out back resting in a golf buggy, smiling, and not looking at all like a worried man as he seeks to claim a third Open championship in succession when he goes into action tomorrow.

And, having earlier admitted he wished the event could be held back for another couple of weeks, Harrington explained the logic behind his decision to undergo swing changes: “I’ve been trying to change my impact position and, through that, a lot of other things turned up. When you change one thing, there are other adjustments needed . . . it has been a little bit more complicated than expected, taking a little longer than expected.

“Golf is always, for me anyway, a juggling act of keeping all the balls in the air and keeping everything working together. And I’ve obviously concentrated on one ball a lot and a few of the other ones have fallen on the ground and it is a question of picking them up and getting them all together again.

“I definitely think I will be a better player at the end of this process. Sometimes, you make short-term sacrifices for long-term gains . . . but, going forward, I’m going to be a better player and that’s all that counts to me.”

All the work with his swing thoughts has, however, brought about an overactive mental side. Not good.

“Obviously with all the stuff I’m doing with my swing, my mind’s a bit too active, let’s say. It is going to be hard to be calm and focused throughout the tournament.”

But, then, Harrington has had to overcome adversity in the past. There was the time when it seemed he couldn’t win a tournament for love or money, raking up 29 runners-up finishes. There was the time at Royal Birkdale last year where he had an injured wrist and was a doubt right up to his first-round tee time. There was the time at Oakland Hills (in the US PGA last August) when he suffered from dehydration.

Is this all a smokescreen?

“Ah, those were different issues. I would have been mentally strong and well-prepared in my mental game whereas this time round my preparation is gone out the window in the mental side of things, rather than the physical side . . . it is a major and it is not necessarily the fact I’m going after a third in a row and, like every major, I want to play my best golf. I’d be optimistic, hopeful – but not expectant.”