Harrington's bogey finish leaves sour taste

GOLF: The sour taste left by a bogey finish didn't unduly affect the sweetness of what had proceeded it. For Padraig Harrington, ever pragmatic, his first day's work - a one-under-par 69, the best opening round he has had in the US Open - could have been better; and it could have been worse.

"You don't win a tournament on Thursday," remarked the Dubliner, "but you can lose it. I'm a little disappointed, but this is okay, quite okay. There's a long way to go."

Nothing had been lost, that was for sure. Harrington's only grievance was entirely personal for not making the most of the conditions: no wind and receptive greens. For 14 holes, he'd played the sort of "boring" golf he had claimed was necessary to contend in the US Open. It was only over the finishing stretch that his game became, as he described it, "exciting", when he was forced to scramble and search for good breaks rather than bad ones.

Harrington couldn't pinpoint the reason why things changed coming in. "I got tired and struggled to focus on a few bad shots," he remarked, only to slightly change his mind. "Actually, it was not tiredness. I just lost focus over the last four holes, hit some wayward shots, and lost concentration a couple of times. I put the bad shots down to loss of focus and I put the loss of focus down to tiredness. It's a sort of chain reaction."

All of which simply confirmed Harrington's belief that mental fortitude, especially in the US Open, is a vital 15th club. His delay in getting here from Washington on Monday meant he missed a planned appointment with his psychologist Dr Bob Rotella and a seven-hour practice round on Tuesday also meant he failed to meet his mind guru. Instead, he was forced to resort to a half-hour telephone session with Rotella.

"I believe I should spend more time on the mental side," admitted Harrington. "We spend 99 per cent of our time working on our physical game and only one per cent on the mental side and it should be the other way around. It's one of those things you keep putting on the long finger and I probably should be applying myself more to it."

Still, he has managed to put himself into the hunt, which is all that is required of a first day's work. This is Harrington's sixth appearance in the US Open - and the first time he has broken 70 in the opening round - but he felt the course was, "playing the easiest, for a US Open, of all the ones I've seen". For much of his round, Harrington avoided trouble, which is the primary requisite for anyone with aspirations. His first birdie came on the second, a par four of 400 yards, where he hit a nine-iron approach in to 15 feet.

And he added another birdie on the fifth, a par four of 440 yards, where he again hit a three-wood off the tee and then put his five-iron approach in to 15 feet. The only blemish on the front nine came on the ninth, a monstrous par four of 496 yards, when he three-putted from the front of the green.

However, Harrington bounced straight back, firing a seven-iron approach to 10 feet on the 10th, and calmly holing the birdie putt. But that was to be it. Although he played his form of boring golf, finding the fairways and hitting greens in regulation, to the 14th, no further birdie was forthcoming.

And, then, it became a grind. He missed the green on the 15th and played a delicate shot out of the rough to 12 feet and holed the par saving putt. On the 16th, he blocked his drive and, hitting a five-wood out of rough with 210 yards to the flag, went through the green. His recovery chip hit the flag - "when you get good breaks you don't make too much of them, and when you get bad ones you don't make too much of them," insisted Harrington - at speed, and gave himself a short tap-in par. On the 17th, where he again missed the green, he played a lovely chip with check off a tight lie to again salvage par only for things to catch up on him at the finishing hole where he three-putted from off the green for a finishing bogey.

"It's disappointing to finish that way, it leaves a bit of a sour taste," he admitted, before heading off for some work on his game, especially his putting. "That's the area I need to work on, really," he claimed.

Yesterday, he had 29 putts in his 69 strokes. The aim for the next three days is to reduce that particular statistic.