Harrington's steady drive for perfection

Ryder Cup: Tom Humphries talks to the ultra-dedicated Padraig Harrington about what the Ryder Cup means to him and about the long and grinding road that has led him to finally believe he can achieve Major success.

"I have to ease up. When I twisted my ankle earlier this year the other areas of my body gave in because I did too much practice. If I just played my golf and headed back to the hotel I wouldn't have these injuries."

So. My name is Padraig Harrington and I work too much.

The ninth-best golfer in the world takes his top off and stretches his arms above his head. He has the familiar mark of Irishness on him, a coppery-brown neck and a milky-white body that the sun never kisses. He folds his black polo-neck with characteristic care and looks you in the eye before he begins unbuckling his trousers.

It's been a long, long day and you are surprised he has time for this. The 24 hours before a tournament begins are always the most high pressured time in Padraig Harrington's week. His perfectionism drives him and torments him and every week time runs out before he has pared his game to the state he'd like it to be in.

Last week it was Mount Juliet. Being the resident pro, the golfer laureate, brought two million fresh demands a day. On Wednesday, with the tournament so near he could smell it, he rises at 8.30 and eats breakfast. Hits the course at 9.30 and has physio for 45 minutes. Then he hurries off to work on some putting before hitting shots for an hour. All of which brings him neatly to 11.30, when he sets out on a practice round with Paul Lawrie and Colin Montgomery.

That finishes at 4.30 and he sits into the trailer car to be hauled back to the clubhouse, until this form of locomotion proves unpopular with the public so he climbs off again and spends half an hour ambling up through Mount Juliet signing his signature onto programmes, hats and proffered limbs, having his photo taken - arms draped around people he's never met before, smiling on the great Irish public.

He grabs a bite and is at the range again not long after five, working on one or two things he feels he needs to work on. Then he irons out a couple of worries about his bunker shots and his putts and arrives late again for treatment on the physio table.

My name is Padraig Harrington and I worry too much.

It's September and he curses the approaching darkness. He'd love to spend another hour on his putting before he clocks off work but his body is out of whack since he did his ankle in July. Because he wouldn't stop practising other bits and pieces went out of alignment in sympathy.

Still he can't leave it. He is a Calvinist when it comes to work and pain. Less work would mean less pain but he prefers it the other way round. More of both. Suffering must produce something. For now it just gives him a glimpse of eternity spent working on things which are not 100 per cent.

An eternity where he never can quite get to his destination, where there's always one small thing left to be ironed out. Hitting putts, locating the feel, the routine, getting some confidence going. That eternity is Harrington heaven.

Harrington is the golfer who always thinks he's left the gas on, who's always going back to check. He doesn't mind the journey.

His trousers hit the ground with a soft swooshing noise. Padraig Harrington stands with the evening sunlight slanting through the window, stands wearing just his socks and his black Calvin Kleins. Boxers, not jockeys, if you're wondering.

"I need this," he says. He does too. You skulk around the clubhouse and the driving range sifting for the bad news on Padraig Harrington, what's on his rap sheet, what do the boys say about him when they backbite. In this babel of bitchiness there isn't anything bad to be said. Nice guy. Works hard. Works real hard, in fact. Harder than anyone out there. It spooks people a bit but hey For Padraig Harrington, golf is a manual labouring job. Grind and graft. Gifts aren't given, they are hewn out of resistant rock.

The worst anyone says is that he plays slowly. Deliberation is part of his accountant's DNA, though. There's a place in the game for a man who thinks his way through every shot. It all comes back down to the hard work thing anyway.

"Yeah I know they say I work hard. It's a fault if anything," he says, "I'm a little addicted to practice, which isn't great. Practice is my favourite part of golf. I have to ease up. When I twisted my ankle earlier this year the other areas of my body gave in because I did too much practice. If I just played my golf and headed back to the hotel I wouldn't have these injuries."

He's always tinkering, though. The process eats him up. His ideal is to tinker well before the tournament and get there, accepting what he's got and playing with what he's got. In the past, that's when he has performed best.

At Mount Juliet, though, with the Ryder Cup looming like another city over the brow of the hill, he had one eye on that other destination. He has a fine Ryder Cup record and approaches the project with a curious mix of pride and thoughtfulness.

It meant he couldn't accept last week at Mount Juliet as the end all or be all of his golf game. His "work in progress" sign was up. Refurbishments continued even though it was business as usual out front.

"If I go to a Major," he says, "I'll just think to myself that I'm only interested in playing the next four days. If my swing isn't there on Monday when I get up I just don't care. This week, though, I care that I should be swinging the club better next week than I am this week.

"So I'm not prepared in that sense. If I have a minor swing fault this week, I'm not prepared to just go with it and work on it next week. I need to work with it this week."

That's the fascination with Harrington and his inexorable progress. He is the shark who is always moving. He began the year ranked 14th in the world, a high, lonely place with air thinner than any he's ever breathed before. This week he is ninth in the world and reckons he can see better, even if the vertigo continues.

"I never feel like I belong up there, but I'm happy doing what I'm doing. I always stand back and say 'wow'. I feel more comfortable at eighth [in this week's rankings, he has dropped to ninth] than at 14th, though. At the start of the year, I was 14th and I was thinking 'wow, how do I improve from here, where do I go?'.

"At eighth, for some reason, I know how I can improve. I don't feel as intimidated as I did when I was 14th. I'm not saying that I don't feel intimidated, I just don't feel as intimidated."

My name is Padraig Harrington and I analyse too much.

He still feels like an outsider. He always will. It's part of what drives the work ethic thing. He's comfortable with his role on the Tour now. Part of the confidence he radiates about further advancement comes from his experience earlier this summer at the British Open. That old cliché about being so near and yet so far? It has its comforts.

"The overall experience was that I walked away believing thoroughly that I am good enough to win a Major. I played good enough golf. My putting let me down, which is usually a strong point, but I could see I have the ability to win a Major."

Did you doubt that before?

"Of course. One hundred per cent I doubted it. I always do. I'd never played a Major where I walked away thinking I should have won, or could have won. Fine, the four guys got in a play-off and Ernie would walk away either winning or thinking he should have won it because it had been his to lose, but I had the same feelings. I'd putted badly all week. Otherwise I was delighted with how I played. Tee to green, I had a good Open.

"It's the way to go in the future, to find the good attitude I had that week."

At the Open, he came as close as he could ever come to being content with what he has got. He found he didn't need to be running compulsively to the practice ground to fiddle with his game.

He found himself in the frame of mind to just go with what he had for the four days. For Harrington, that's a whole alternative lifestyle, the equivalent of turning on, tuning in and dropping out.

Suddenly, he felt no need to go to the range looking for the final five per cent He decided he'd gain more by resting.

At the Open, he never hit the range at all. He just warmed up before he went out. Then he played. The aggregate of his week's experience was he came away from a Major believing thoroughly that he was good enough to win one.

Immediately after his 72nd hole, he was elated. Came off, thought he'd played great, felt he'd been comfortable in the situation. He'd hit a bad shot on 18, but who cared? He could feel no difference in finishing second or fifth.

"But I was devastated when six-under made it into a play-off. It never looked likely and then I came away thinking 'I could have won this, I can win a Major'. This is hopeful. Just half an hour later I'm thinking 'I should have won this'.

"This is a regret. I was rooting for Ernie to make birdies on the way home. I wanted him to finish seven-under."

That night, he went to the IMG house, mixed with the staff and players there, played a little ping-pong, but couldn't escape the feeling he could have a claret jug back in his room.

"I was very disappointed that even the play-off was won softly, or tied softly. Yet, on the other hand, I played golf-tee to green good enough to win a Major and I've never done that before. I've putted well and got into positions before. I've never done it tee to green. I know how I came about it. Know how I did it.

"It was a nice reminder though of what I should be doing. These past few years I've been learning all the time. I know, though, that there's not enough time to put it all into practice. This is where I'll improve over the next few years, I'll improve through how I approach things.

"I know I can physically compete now. I can hit the shots. There's nothing that scares me out there. I have to do it for 72 holes. I've done it for 27 at the Masters, for 36 at the US Open. Played the golf for 67 holes or so at the Open championship."

He lies face down now. Braced and ready. The oil is cold as it trickles onto his bare back, but he knows what's ahead. He says nothing for a second. Then it begins. The familiar rhythm. That soothing pain. He gasps.

"I'm totally different to what I was in Brookline. Physically and mentally. Yet, believe this or not, I will struggle to get myself as zoned in as at Brookline. Mentally, that was the best overall week I've ever had. I was as good as I have ever been, mentally, that week. At the Open this year I was good tee to green.

"Other areas I was lacking, though. At Brookline, I focused my best. That's become the standard for me to aim at.

"I know how I got there. Basically, it came down to - this will sound silly - I just accepted that that was what I had. I had no time to go to the range. I just stuck with it. I was reasonably confident going in and it was easier to accept.

"I just accepted my golf and tried to play like Padraig Harrington and not somebody else."

Those last frenzied practice days before Brookline were the sort of environment Harrington thrives in and it was with his application and work at that point that he won the confidence of Mark James.

This time around, he no longer enjoys the advantage of coming up on the outside rail. This week, Europe expects. And, next year, Europe expects. Harrington's next level of achievement must include that elusive Major.

My name is Padraig Harrington and I enjoy the winter too much.

What keeps him from annexing a big one then? Time?

"It's not time. It will take time, but if I sat around waiting it wouldn't happen. This year has been my best year for learning. I've learned more this year than finishing second seven times last year.

"I have to wait till the winter to really get into that. I'm really looking forward to my winter break because of what I've learned and want to work on."

Preparations for the Ryder Cup ask him to zone in from an earlier stage. He likes that. The practice rounds are very intense. Again he enjoys that elevation. The trick is the stopping.

His name is Padraig Harrington and he doesn't know when to stop.

At least he knows. He just can't. At Brookline, he accepted what he was when the practice ended. He accepted that he couldn't play perfect golf. "I stopped judging myself and did the mental things right. Not an easy thing for me to do."

The lesson for next week lies in that those few crazy days in Boston three years ago. The foundation for next week lies in this week.

"Mount Juliet was a great week for me. Only thing that could distract a player from the Ryder Cup at Mount Juliet was playing too well and then focusing on the tournament. The Ryder Cup players' attitudes will have changed according to that. It's great, though, to be guaranteed four rounds of golf. Not a two-round sprint. It's unfortunate all the Ryder Cup players aren't here. It's perfect. Well, if you are in contention maybe not perfect."

Watching Harrington at Mount Juliet it was possible to see the player he has become, the man he has made himself be. Possible to detect the growing appreciation the public has of the journey he has made from Stackstown to stardom.

He only notices in small ways. The vast majority of the page impressions on his personal web site are made by Americans. His profile is growing.

Those rankings lift him higher and higher. He finds he does more press conferences now. The galleries are bigger, perhaps. Small things.

He doesn't feel it, though. It's the old Marshall McLuhan conundrum about if the temperature in the bath increases by one degree every 10 minutes the bather will never know when to scream.

"There's loads of extra pressure, this week say. Lots of interviews, lots of running around. Things you ought to do, have to do. More people know me. If you know people you have to stop and say hello. There's a lot in it. Takes more of your energy. At a regular tournament I wouldn't be doing a press conference.

"Still, when I made the Irish boys team at 15 I thought that was fame. If I went playing in a junior boys competition people knew who I was, even if it was only half a dozen people. It's all been gradual since then. No great explosions.

"So gradual that I don't notice it. When I was 15 maybe five people would be out and watch me hitting a golf ball. Now there's more. That's all."

Dale Richardson, the physio, finishes with the oil and gets to work. He leans his elbow on Padraig Harrington's bare back and begins moving up and down slowly. At first it knocks the wind out of Harrington.

Again and again Richardson moves his elbow up and down Harrington's back without mercy. Whatever happened to Wodehouse's game, so easily disturbed by the racket of butterflies in a neighbouring meadow? This is just the start.

You try to shock Harrington by asking what all the Ryder Cup fuss is about, anyway, tell him that you've never rated the competition. He explains the value to the Europeans and then to the Americans, scarred and all as they are.

"Well, it means a lot to us as we are the underdogs. We've something to prove. Trying to beat our big brothers. Means a lot to them we've beaten them. World series (baseball) is among themselves. Football is among themselves. They're no real use at soccer."

But Europe? What does it mean. You don't consider yourself European? "I do. I think of myself as Irish. Strongly Irish. And then as European. No problem with that."

When the disparate Europeans gather next week it will be as friends and well, Europeans. That willingness to gel into a team surprised Harrington three years ago.

"You can't believe it. That surprised me so much. You come together and everyone gets on and helps. It's a phenomenon. After the Ryder Cup, the following week you'll meet your team-mates and they'll come up and hug you and stop for a chat at the range. The following week it's high fives and a chat, the next week shake your hand and a few quick words. Then it's a nod. Then it's head down and ignoring each other again.

"If you watch it, it's fascinating. The team atmosphere is there for a while and a few weeks afterwards you're doing well to get a hello. I enjoy it while it lasts."

My name is Padraig Harrington. I haven't got happy feet.

Brookline changed his attitude to a whole raft of guys. Jiminez emerged as quite a lot larger than life, a flamboyant, amusing character. Good to play with. And Sandelin turned out to be one of the biggest, best team players Harrington had have ever come across.

"Couldn't care less about himself," says Harrington, "just into the team".

Harrington, a former Gaelic footballer of accomplishment, likes the team stuff, the pumped up thing. He likes to have the support, but he is an accountant by nature and by qualification. He will not high five in public. Thank you.

But he'll hang on every word from every hole. What does it mean? "The US have been criticised in the past, people saying they weren't interested. They showed what it meant on the 17th at Brookline. That's great for the game. Take away the fuss and it proved something. It meant more to them than it did 20 years ago. They really, really wanted to win. It's a real match. We like to know that too."

He's dressed again now. Ready for another slice of the world. A day longer than yours and longer than mine is drawing down to its finish.

"Dale, what time tomorrow?," he asks. "Eight a.m.? Eight in the morning it is." The journalist shudders. Harrington still considers the question of exulting team-mates. It's a thanks, but no thanks deal. "I'm not that sort of person. I enjoy seeing other people do it. If you see me doing a dance on the 18th green something very odd is happening."

Here's hoping.