Harrington's character the difference

"WHO'S that guy?"

"That's Pawdrag Hairington."

"Oh! Way to go Pawdrag."

Final day at the US Open and it's all Tiger, all the time. Padraig Harrington and Miguel Angel Jimenez, the pair out just in front of the boy wonder are sideshow fodder for the whooping legions who crowd the fairways. They shoot and half the crowd don't follow the arc of the ball but instead keep looking back into the distance for the first glimpse of HIM.

It's pity because Harrington played a lot of good golf yesterday as he put together his fourth fine round of the week to claim his share of fifth place and $162,526. In the end he was a little disappointed as some poor shot decisions cost him a place at even higher altitude on the leaderboard.

"Before I came here if you had offered me fifth place I would have been happy, but right now I'm a bit disappointed."

Pebble Beach was clammy for the most part yesterday but, even with the elements at peace, the course didn't yield easily.

Never a dull moment. Harrington went to the turn at two under having birdied the first, third, sixth and ninth and having made bogeys on the seventh and eighth. He was playing thrilling golf.

Standing on the teebox at the notoriously tricky par-three fifth, he turned to caddy Dave McNeilly and asked if he could go straight for the pin if he wanted. McNeilly urged him to fire away.

Down onto the home stretch he went and he was close enough just then to smell the money. The breaks stopped falling his way though and the devil went out of his game. He tickled his second foot past the pin on 10 and made bogey, made a nice recovery from a bunker on the par-three 12 but lipped his putt, then struggled after missing the fairway on 13. More trouble on 17 made it four bogeys in eight holes on the way home.

"I was going well until the seventh," he said ruefully behind the 18th green. "I was feeling the pressure and the bit of adrenaline and I had the focus. From then on it was a little disappointing. I seemed to lose that edge."

It was the strangest of days. Tiger Woods was operating in a different stratosphere, controlling the golf course at will with a conservative level-par game through the front nine, then having some fun down the back.

Every time Harrington swung into view there was chaos going on behind him as people jockeyed for the coming attraction. Final day at the US Open, concentration at a premium. You could see what separated the blessed from the damned. Character.

"All the way through I just tried my own thing. I didn't even look at the scoreboard till the end when I had a crack at a birdie on the last. I thought that might move me up a place or two."

Harrington was asked afterwards if he regarded himself as the surprise of the top five. "Well from the question you obviously see me as the surprise," he said softly.

He has won friends here. When Harrington left the Belfry last month he was both winner and loser. His class in dealing with that calamity enhanced his reputation immensely but he left behind a large chunk of change and the chance to know what he would do on the final day of a big tournament with the klieg lights in his eyes. This week he found out.

This week he found his game and his mental strength in harmony. All week long the guys who have those things were the guys who were getting the job done. Take Saturday at Pebble Beach when the wind had come up all sprightly and mischievous. Harrington's first nine holes were arguably the best nine holes of the week.

In a week when excuses offered themselves like sweet temptation, Harrington kept his eyes on the prize and retained that sense of himself and what is right.

Early on Saturday, he had resumed his second round at 6.30 a.m. and in the dim light of morning he'd lined up a 10-foot putt for par on the ninth.

"Just as I was about to strike it the ball fell back. I don't suppose anybody else saw, but I called the penalty - and then holed it for bogey."

Decency is that low key, that pragmatic.

Yesterday at Pebble Beach virtue and patience got it's reward and it became clear Harrington had no cause to ask those questions of himself. Tiger Woods said a few years ago that his greatest challenge was to bring his golf game up to the level of his mind. The quote would have resonated with Harrington, whose temperament has been the key to his inexorable progress in the world game. The last four days were a victory of mind over matter.

"What I learned today and this week was that I need to become more focussed in picking a shot. There were a few occasions today when I wasn't sure what sort of shot I was trying to play.

"Well I have to hit my long iron shots a bit softer. If you look at 12 and 17 today I was on the tee-box and I didn't really know what way to hit. I was brought up on courses that were hard and fast and today mentally I got caught out a bit."

Just in case he's coming off as the glummest man ever to win $163,000, he sums up on positive note. "Overall I'm encouraged I suppose. I handled the rough well today."

If character is fate, well, yesterday's stroll through the big-time was just a prologue. Padraig Harrington has arrived.