Fifteen minutes of fame seemed a reasonable expectation after what promised to be a pivotal, singles victory in his first Ryder Cup. But as he recalls it, there were no more than 10 golden minutes for Padraig Harrington at Brookline, before everything seemed to turn sickeningly to dross.

Still, it remains the undoubted highlight of a remarkable year, now drawing to a close in far-off Japan, where he is currently competing in the Casio World Open, which Brian Watts captured 12 months ago. After that, he will have a few days' break before heading for South America and the Argentine Open.

"When I had beaten Mark O'Meara, I ran back down the 18th fairway, though it felt as if I was floating," he recalled. "I was delighted, thrilled, really on a high. I wasn't aware of my feet hitting the ground.

"The next thing I knew I was sitting down beside the 17th green and Justin Leonard was standing over that putt. Incredibly, the ball finished in the hole and in that instant, it was all taken away from me. All the joy was gone. In its place was a sickening knot in my stomach.

"It had all vanished so quickly. I only had 10 minutes of elation, followed by two hours of devastation," Then, as the memories came flooding back, he added: "In fairness, by the time we got to the closing ceremony, everybody decided to put on a brave face. A certain balance came into our emotions."

It was only when he got home to Dublin and was made aware of how much it meant to the Irish public that Harrington could take any real satisfaction out of what he had achieved. "Prior to that, I was more concerned with the fact that the team hadn't won. I would very happily have lost, for the team to win," he said.

Such sentiments would have rung somewhat hollow from some players. But they seemed very much in character with Harrington, the quintessential team man whose gnawing concern in graduating from amateur ranks was how much he was going to miss the Home Internationals and the Walker Cup.

Though he had been showing good form since mid-July, events took a major, upwards turn in what he recalls as gentle circumstances at Galway Bay GC in mid-August. "Galway (the West of Ireland Classic) was a nice event. I enjoyed the week. I had a nice, comfortable feeling like, dare I say it, I would have had playing in an amateur championship," he said.

And didn't second place produce a priceless dividend? "Well, it would have been easy to think negatively of the last round and the way I hit it out of bounds on the 16th," he replied. "That was a ridiculously bad tee-shot which you can only describe as a serious choke under pressure.

"So, it would have been very easy to be knocked back by that week. But I had turned the corner a few weeks earlier. I started to enjoy my golf more and to accept what I was doing. So, that out-of-bounds drive didn't really bother me. I just kept going. That was the reason I probably played well the next week.

"Galway set up Munich (BMW International, the final qualifying event for the Ryder Cup) to be the big one. It was a pressure-filled week, totally the opposite to Galway. And going there, the only thing on my mind was the Ryder Cup.

"I remember turning to my wife and asking: `Caroline, what position do I need to finish.' She told me first or second. After that, I never looked at the Ryder Cup table. I had learned my lesson from 1997 when, in my attempt at making the team, I made the mistake of trying to beat the guys around me.

"If I was £6,000 ahead of somebody, I was trying to beat him in that tournament to stay £6,000 ahead of him. But I discovered you don't make the Ryder Cup team that way. It makes no difference who is in ninth, 10th, 12th, 13th or 17th place in the points table; they're all going to get passed by one guy playing well each week.

"As far as automatic selection is concerned, the only way to get into the team is with big cheques, which Robert Karlsson found out. You've got to get away from the fringe and jump right in with £70,000 or better still £100,000.

"Caroline told me that first or second would jump the boys and they simply couldn't win enough money to get past me. That was all I needed to know."

He and his wife are very much a modern couple in the context of professional golf, travelling the world together and sharing the highs and lows of the tournament scene. Last week at the Mines Resort in Kuala Lumpur, there was the sight of her flinging a sandwich to her husband as he stepped off the 10th tee. And later, she asked if I would mind her sitting beside me in the media centre as she took details from the scoreboard for Padraig's benefit.

All the while, she exudes an infectious enthusiasm about her husband's work - knowledgeable without being pushy; quietly stoic in times of bitter disappointment.

For his part, Harrington has continued to develop as a player of enormous potential, largely because of what Bobby Jones described as the most important inches in golf - those between his two ears. The discipline of qualifying as an accountant, clearly helped. So has physical fitness which he maintains through work in the gym three days a week.

Above all else, however, is an extraordinary equanimity, which makes him a welcome partner on the golf course and invariably a responsive, helpful interviewee off it. And his skills are greatly admired by his peers. For instance, when he went within an inch or two of making what would have been a truly outrageous par on the treacherous ninth at the Mines, playing partner Mark James was moved to comment: "Even you would have to be ashamed of making a four here."

With official earnings of £587,825 in Europe, he finished the season in sixth position in the Order of Merit, his highest in four seasons on tour. But he argued: "I never bother to look at prize money, for the simple reason that if I play well, I know the cash will take care of itself."

And so it has. When I went out to Stackstown GC to meet him after he and Paul McGinley had captured the World Cup two years ago, he drove up in a modest Honda Civic. Shortly after that, he graduated to a Mercedes 500SL and may soon be moving on to something equally impressive.

"The fact that my tournament earnings are public knowledge is a price I'm prepared to accept as a professional," he said. "Money is not a good yardstick, however, of how you're doing. I'm in the top 40 of the career-money list in Europe, but titles is what I'm after.

"That's not to deny that money allows me to do things I otherwise couldn't. Like for instance, I'm in the market to buy a house and if I hadn't the money, I'd be looking at something at a reasonable price. But because I've money, I'm looking to buy a house at an obscene price. So I don't see myself as being any richer at the end of the day.

"Once you get to a certain level, you're not as concerned about it. I'm out here such a short period of time and my accountancy background has helped me in terms of investments and pensions. But I still like doing the same things I did three or four years ago. That's the truth of it."

How did he view his season? "Five second places, a couple of fourth places a sixth place, the Ryder Cup, making the top-50 in the world rankings," he mused. "A lot of good performances. But I don't know whether to cheer about finishing second five times. It's a pity to have lost so many tournaments."

Did he see them as losses? "Well, some of them were. I see the Italian Open and the German Masters as losses. I may have finished with a 67 in Germany but I still bogeyed the last. In the Italian, I was playing so well for the first three rounds that I should have done better than a 71 in the last round. So I do see them as losses."

Does he consider himself a better player now than at the start of the year? "Well, I'm certainly swinging the club better and I've lengthened by drives from 255 to 280 yards," he replied. "I suppose I'm a superior player in the perceptions of other people, but not in my own eyes. You don't see the changes in yourself - you can't readily put your finger on them.

"Maybe I am better than I was. But I'm only looking ahead. I'm only interested in where I want to go, not where I've been. All I can see is myself here, now with all the things that I want to improve.

"I realise that in my way I'm looking for perfection. But that's the way I am."