Harrington happy enough with mid-term report card

GOLF: BRIAN KEOGHgets the views of the Dubliner after his up and down second round at the Bridgestone Invitational

IT’S A sign of the times with Pádraig Harrington these days that the most eye-catching thing about his play in the first two rounds of the WGC-Bridgestone Invitational was the strip of blue tape adorning his right arm.

Afflicted with tennis elbow throughout his career, Harrington dismissed the “dead” arm feeling he has when he wakes up in the morning as nothing more than a typical golfer’s “niggle” and not in the least bit debilitating when it comes to hitting a golf ball.

Of course, the Dubliner has the best medical advice at his disposal and his “physio”, the Australian Dr Dale Richardson, has opted to treat Harrington with something called SpiderTech kinesio tape, which he explained, “basically stimulates the activity of some of the muscles that are being switched off at the moment. It’s designed to give a neurological change to the area.”

Whatever about Harrington’s physical state, he neurologically switched off when asked about the level par 70 he shot at a muggy Firestone Country Club yesterday,

“I holed some putts and putted well all the way through so I was happy with that,” he said after using the blade 27 times. “It is what it is. I can’t tell you any different. What can I say?”

Still working without a coach, he hit seven of 14 fairways and nine of 14 greens before heading into lunch, immersed deep in the pack on one-over par.

In fact, his haul of six birdies and seven bogeys in 36 holes says just about everything one might need to know about his game.

A pessimist would see the bottle as half empty after yesterday’s round in which he got to two under par for the day with seven to play but then bogeyed the 14th after driving into sand and dropped another shot at his nemesis hole, the par-five 16th, where he hit his lay-up into the right rough and decided to bale out left of the water-protected green with his 135-yard third.

His round started poorly when he drove into sand at the first and bogeyed and found sand off the tee again at the par-five second before spinning his third shot off the front of the green.

However, he soon found some rhythm and birdied the sixth from six feet, saved par from seven feet at the short seventh after carving his tee shot into greenside sand and then birdied the eighth after a magnificent 184-yard approach to 17 feet.

He bogeyed the ninth, however, failing to get up and down from just short of the green after winging his tee shot into the left rough.

Back where he started the day on one over par, he holed from 22 feet for birdie at both the 10th and 11th, but finished poorly with those late bogeys and confessed that there is plenty of room for improvement before he heads to Atlanta Athletic Club for next week’s US PGA Championship.

“If I was getting my school report it would say, ‘good but could do better’,” he said with a grin. “I have a couple more rounds to go.”