S omewhere in Detroit, a black toddler has a striped t-shirt with the name Pádraig Harrington written on the back of it. Fast asleep and cuddled into his father’s chest, he acquired the memento while the newly-crowned PGA champion was being ushered along a walkway towards the clubhouse last Sunday, for a formal gathering of the great and the good of American golf.
There was a charming empathy about the situation in that Harrington had to balance his own child, Ciaran, in his left arm so that the right hand would be free to do the autograph. And he insisted on stopping despite the security concerns of police and officials.
While observing the scene, it struck me that when this black child is old enough to know about important sporting matters, he may well become aware of the man who had signed his shirt going head to head in some major championship with an iconic figure for US minorities. And would he find himself cheering for Tiger Woods or the benevolent Irishman?
After what we witnessed at Oakland Hills, we know it will happen, and probably not long after Woods returns to action next season having recovered from surgery on his damaged left knee. Though the rankings tell it differently, Harrington’s discipline, strength of mind and dedication have made him the second best player in the world. And, according to his coach Bob Torrance, there is more, much more to come.
“We have yet to see the best of Pádraig,” said the grizzled Scot, who accepted the challenge of transforming Harrington’s game 10 years ago. “As for him setting his sights on Tiger: maybe Tiger is setting his sights on him!”
Torrance then revealed one of the prime reasons behind the Dubliner’s success. “We have already talked on the phone twice since the PGA to discuss some problems with his game. I saw from the television that his address position wasn’t good during the final round, which is why his driving was poor.
“He always discusses things with me while he’s away; things to work on before his next tournament. And winning his second major in three weeks doesn’t change that.”
So, has Torrance ever been fully satisfied with his pupil? “Yes,” he replied. “His performance in the Open at Birkdale was unbelievable, especially the back nine which was as good as I’ve ever seen from anyone.”
What did the coach see as the crucial difference between Harrington and Woods? The answer was crushingly simple. “What Pádraig did at Oakland Hills, getting up and down brilliantly over the finishing holes, Woods does all the time,” he said. “That’s why he’s so good.
“They’re both wonderfully dedicated. And that doesn’t mean hitting a few balls on the practice range in the morning and leaving. It means hitting balls all day. Then on to the short game, bunker play, putting, every day of your life. I’ve been with Pádraig when we’ve done 12-hour days together. And Tiger never stops working. And while we know about Gary Player and Ben Hogan, I can tell you that Sam Snead practised every day of his life.”
Speaking with Harrington last week, I was fascinated by the idea of a player making things happen on a golf course, as he seemed to do over those climactic holes at Oakland Hills. It’s not as if he were operating in laboratory conditions, where the movement of the ball could be predicted in precise detail. He happened to be putting on severely undulating greens which retained indentations, even from repaired pitchmarks, and were spiked-up from the treading of close on 150 pairs of feet, including caddies.
For mere mortals, the popular concept is of great players actually willing the ball into the hole. Which, of course, flies in the face of physics. But it happens. “That’s the best part of the game,” said Harrington. “Making things happen. That’s what I look for; that’s what I enjoy; that’s what I relish. I’ve always had the ability to hole putts when they really matter, but what I’ve got to concentrate on now is doing it in rounds one, two and three.”
Then I asked him to name players he had observed with the ability to do what he, himself, had done as Sunday’s round built towards a gripping climax. To make things happen in crunch situations. “There is only one other person at the moment you see doing it,” he replied. “If I sat down and thought about it, maybe I’d find others. But there’s no doubt about it, the more trouble Tiger gets into, the better he plays.”
Harrington’s decision to take up with Torrance after the 1998 US Open has undoubtedly made him the brilliant ball-striker we see today. But in my view, his competitive steel and amazing resolve, have their roots in his reaction to a potentially crippling experience in the same championship at Pebble Beach two years later. That was when he played the final round in the second-last two-ball with Miguel-Angel Jimenez and finished 17 strokes behind Woods in a share of fifth place.
Despite such an overwhelming dominance, it is revealing to note how close Harrington got to Woods in certain statisticial categories of that championship. For instance, the Dubliner had actually fewer putts than Woods over the four days, with an average of 27.3 per round compared with 27.5 from the American. And they both hit exactly the same ratio of fairways — 73.2 per cent.
Then there was the fact that Woods carded 44 pars compared with 43 from Harrington. So what separated them? Essentially, it started with the fact that Woods drove the ball an average of 20 yards further — 299.3 yards as against 279.3. This helped him achieve the key statistic of 70.8 per cent of greens in regulation, whereas Harrington hit only 51.4. And the outcome? Woods had a total of 21 birdies over the four days compared with the Dubliner’s 13.
Now consider the relative statistics of Harrington and Sergio Garcia over the four days at Oakland Hills. Crucially, the champion’s 20 birdies were the most by any player while Garcia carded 10, plus one eagle. And while Garcia hit the greater number of greens in regulation, Harrington more than compensated with the blade, taking 108 putts over the four days compared with 115 from the Spaniard.
The most important development from Pebble Beach, however, was Harrington’s determination to close the gap on Woods, while leading players such as Ernie Els, Vijay Singh and Phil Mickelson, virtually admitted defeat.
And even with his victory in the Players’ Championship last May, Garcia’s improvement has to be seen as decidedly modest, given a runner-up finish to Woods in the PGA at Medinah as a 19-year-old in 1999. Looking at Woods in 2000, I remember thinking of him as unbeatable. But the gap between himself and Harrington has since closed significantly, even though the American believes he is now a better ball-striker than he was back then.
Torrance has helped Harrington hugely in that regard. “Tiger’s ball-striking is excellent and he’s brilliant at getting up and down,” said the Scot. “But his driving’s not good. For the position he’s got in golf, he doesn’t drive the ball well.”
Even gifted players need the encouragement of a rival’s weakness and for someone with Harrington’s determination, this sort of an opening is enough. But there’s work to be done.
“In terms of confidence, Bob Rotella (his mind coach) has told me it’s difficult to move up to the next level,” he said. “But that’s what I’ve got to do. I’ve got to start believing that I’m a guy who has won three majors. That I’m world number three and that I’m improving.”
Though he claimed he didn’t usually visualise an opponent when going down the stretch on a Sunday afternoon, his eyes suddenly lit up when I suggested it was inevitable he and Woods would go head-to-head in a major championship. “Oh yeah,” he said. “I hope so. There’s no way teeing it up in a major that you wouldn’t be happy playing with Tiger in the last round.”
Our little friend in Detroit can’t imagine the great golfing times that lie ahead.
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