Tour News: On and off the course, Padraig Harrington is enjoying a year of years. Back in May, he was awarded an honorary doctorate from NUI Maynooth and, today, the Dubliner, just two days after the 17th individual win of his professional career, will be awarded an honorary fellowship from Dublin Business School in association with Liverpool's John Moores University in a ceremony at the RDS Ballsbridge.
When Harrington was studying for his accountancy qualifications in the Business School in the early 1990s, he could hardly have envisaged the numbers he would be totting up so diligently would be his own. Yet, in a professional career that has now seen him win in no fewer than nine different countries (Spain, Ireland, Brazil, Scotland, the United States, Taiwan, Germany, Hong Kong and Japan), Harrington's latest victory, in the Dunlop Phoenix tournament, where he beat Tiger Woods in a play-off, has seen him move to eighth in the latest official world rankings.
With the 2006 European Tour Order of Merit already bagged, Harrington's elevation to eighth (from 11th last week) in the rankings means he is now the highest positioned European player.
Luke Donald (ninth) is the only other European in the top 10, with Sergio Garcia slipping to 11th.
The transformation in Harrington's form in the second part of the season has turned a good year into a great one. Back in April, he had fallen to 31st in the world rankings having started the year in 17th.
However, since his fifth place finish in the US Open, Harrington has claimed two wins - in the Dunhill Links on the European Tour and the Dunlop Phoenix on the Japanese Tour - as well as four runner-up finishes, the last of which came at the Volvo Masters last month and which was sufficient to allow him to overtake Paul Casey to claim the European Tour money title.
On top of all those individual achievements, Harrington was also a part of the European Ryder Cup team at The K Club in September that claimed a record-equalling winning margin and Europe's third consecutive success in the match with the US.
While Woods has moved on to Hawaii for the Grand Slam of Golf, starting today, where he will be in action along with Geoff Ogilvy, Jim Furyk and Mike Weir, Harrington has a week off before resuming tournament play with a three-week run-in to the winter close-season for him.
Harrington plays next week's Nedbank Challenge in Sun City (which has a field limited to just 12 players, six of them members of Europe's Ryder Cup team) and then travels on to Barbados for the World Cup and finishes his year's work by playing in the Target World Challenge in California, another limited-field tournament with no cut.
Darren Clarke is the only other Irish player invited to play in a tournament promoted by Woods.
Harrington is by far the busiest Irish player at this time of the year and, by the time he puts his clubs away after the World Challenge, he will have played five tournaments in six weeks.
Such a busy workload, though, has brought its rewards to Harrington who traditionally plays well towards the end of the season and this is reflected in the fact he has now moved up to eighth in the 2006 world money list with winnings worldwide of $4,167,499. The list is headed by Woods, who has amassed $11,141,827 from his endeavours which include nine wins, among them two majors.
Four Irish players are competing in this week's Australian Masters at Huntingdale, a tournament that is co-sanctioned by the Australasian and European Tours.
Regular tour players Damien McGrane, Peter Lawrie and Gary Murphy are joined by David Walker in a field in Australia that also features Casey and American Kevin Stadler, who is attempting to retain his position at the top of the Australian money list.
