Upbeat Harrington happy with progress

WHERE TO now? On Sunday evening, away from it all, Pádraig Harrington could be found in the clubhouse of Hazeltine National sipping Diet Coke and, if you’d expected to find shrapnel from the type of implosion he’d experienced on one hole – the eighth – of his final round of the USPGA, there wasn’t any such evidence. Nope, no scars, no angst, just a belief that the future could be even rosier than the past.

“I’m only interested in winning and I didn’t win, that’s it . . . there’s no scar at all, none whatsoever. It’s better to have tried and fallen than never to have tried at all. As far as I’m concerned, the only thing that matters was I was tested out there and how I felt in myself. Okay, I came up short, yeah, but that’s no problem. I felt great out there. I was never out of position bar one hole,” said Harrington.

Of that quintuple bogey eight on the par-three eighth which ended his quest to retain the championship, Harrington observed, “ultimately, I was trying to play the shot to win the tournament. I wasn’t going to bail out (left). But I eased off it, just as I was about to pull the trigger . . . another five yards in the air and it would have been on the green . . . it wasn’t my day. It didn’t matter what I did. Taking eight there didn’t matter.

“I performed well enough to win this week but I think I could perform even better than that . . . it just wasn’t my day, it wasn’t going to happen. So, ça la vie.”

After a major championship which, for the first time, saw three Irish players finish inside the top-10 – Rory McIlroy (third), Graeme McDowell (tied-10th) and Harrington (tied-10th) – there was, indeed, an air of hope and expectation among all of them as they departed Chaska, Minnesota, to make their various ways home.

In the case of McIlroy, who moved up seven places to 22nd in the latest world rankings after his effort, the mood – as you’d expect – was of exuberance. The 20-year-old Ulsterman had inveigled a way to finish third in a major, knowing that the has completed the learning curve of playing all four majors in a season for the first time.

“I’m hoping to build on these results next year, and hopefully do a bit better,” he said, of a campaign that saw him finish 20th at the Masters, 10th at the US Open, 46th in the British Open and third in the PGA.

“I’ve a lot to build for,” added McIlroy. “I have a lot of momentum going into the majors next year. I’ve learned a few things on my way this year and that should help me next year to build on them and hopefully get in a couple better finishes than just top-10 or top-five.”

Likewise, McDowell cast an eye to the future. “I haven’t played my best golf this season at all. My full swing hasn’t been there, and my short game can still improve all the time . . . I’ve learned how to attack majors now. They are different from regular events, you have to work out how to prepare yourself physically.”

If the eyes of McIlroy and McDowell have been opened to what it takes to win a major and how to achieve it, Harrington – despite his calamitous quintuple bogey – left with as much a spring in his step as the two Northern Irishmen.

Harrington, who moved on to conduct a corporate day in Chicago yesterday before returning home to Dublin by private jet, will resume tournament play in next week’s Barclays Championship at Liberty National in New Jersey, the first of the US Tour’s FedEx Cup play-off series. He is also guaranteed a place in the following week’s Deutsche Bank championship and his performances in those two tournaments will determine if he gets into the final two, the BMW in Illinois and the Tour Championship in Atlanta.

Yet, as ever, nothing is simple with Harrington. Having endured an extremely tough first six months to his season, the Dubliner has turned things around in recent weeks – second to Tiger Woods in the Bridgestone and 10th in the PGA, both with two horror scores on one hole – the question he posed to himself on Sunday night was whether he should keep the momentum going or look ahead to next season? As he put it, “I know I am getting so much better, the question is do I continue in this mindset for the rest for the season or do I start building up for the majors next year already?

“It’s an interesting one . . . I’m probably saying I should continue in this mindset for a little longer but I am definitely on the right tracks, I felt very good out there all week, hit a lot of nice shots. Yes, excellent.”

Indeed, Harrington went so far as to claim that this season has been an even greater watershed moment in his career than his epiphany moment coming down the stretch at the US Open in Winged Foot in 2006 where he really realised he could win majors.

“I am getting a lot better. I’ve actually made some big improvements this year. It probably has been the most pivotal point of my entire career, I’d say the first six months of this year definitely have been the biggest amount I’ve learned as a pro.”