Harrington opts to play before US Open

Amazing, really, what a week off can do for you. Padraig Harrington spent the past week away from tournament play, instead focusing on his new departure into golf course design - at The Malbrook in Clonmel - and undertaking a reconnaissance mission to Carnoustie, the host course of the British Open in July and, yet, he still moved up in the world rankings.

Despite a week away from the grind of tournament play, the 35-year-old Dubliner will return to action this week in the Stanford St Jude Championship on the US Tour with an improved world ranking of 10th. The rankings are a strange beast. Harrington failed to break into the top-10 in the official rankings after his Irish Open win just three weeks ago, but nevertheless has moved up one place and manoeuvred a way back into 10th position after a week off. The vagaries of the rankings would leave Freud confused, that's for sure.

Harrington, despite a recent stint that saw him play four tournaments in a row up to the BMW Championship at Wentworth, resumes play at the St Jude which has a new date on the US Tour calendar and an increased prize fund of $6 million in a tournament aimed at preparing him for next week's US Open at Oakmont in western Pennsylvania. It will be Harrington's first time to play in this particular tournament.

And although it is the likes of Camillo Villegas (seen in TV commercials Stateside teeing up at the gates of Elvis Presley's Graceland and hitting drives along the Memphis trolley line), David Toms and John Daly (feature driving balls across the Mississippi River) who have been used in marketing this new pre-US Open stop on the schedule, the actual field is a strong one with five of the world's top-10 ranked players competing.

The five top-10 ranked players in the field are Phil Mickelson (2nd), Adam Scott (4th), Vijay Singh (6th), Geoff Ogilvy (8th) and Harrington (10th). Retief Goosen, ranked 11th, is also playing. Indeed, it is interesting to note the different preferences of the world's elite players in the week before a major, as Tiger Woods, Jim Furyk, Ernie Els, Henrik Stenson and Luke Donald have all preferred to go down the route of resting the week before the season's second major.

A number of seasons ago, Harrington tried the alternative option of resting the week before a major but has since changed his mind and, now, prefers to fine tune his game in actual competition the previous week.

Prior to his fifth-place finish in the US Open last year, Harrington defended his title in the Barclays Classic in Westchester, finishing in tied-36th position and offering little indication of form for the following week's assault on the major which only fizzled out with a finishing run of three bogeys over the final three holes of the final round at Winged Foot.

While Harrington prepares for the season's second major with a warm-up outing in St Jude - he plans to get to Pittsburgh from Memphis on Sunday evening, allowing him three days to get acquainted with the course at Oakmont - his fellow Irish tour professionals are currently operating on a different level.

Darren Clarke, who has now fallen to 94th in the official world rankings, has decided to play in the Austrian Open in Fontana this week. In a dispiriting few months, Clarke has had to battle injury with a run of indifferent form that has seen him fail to make a cut in a stroke play since the Malaysian Open in February.

Clarke is joined in the field in Fontana by Graeme McDowell, Peter Lawrie, Gary Murphy - who confirmed his good progress of late with a top-10 finish in the Wales Open that moved him to 80th on the European Tour money list - and David Higgins.

Michael Hoey leads the small Irish contingent competing in the Vodafone Championship in Dusseldorf on the Challenge Tour. He is joined by Colm Moriarty and Stephen Browne.

South Korean KJ Choi jumped 15 places to 17th in the world rankings issued yesterday after his win at the Memorial Tournament. Choi shot a closing 65 to edge out former US amateur champion Ryan Moore by one stroke in Dublin, Ohio, on Sunday and collect his fifth victory on the PGA Tour.