GOLF:A LETTER from Tiger Woods lies in Pádraig Harrington's home in Dublin which, in its own little way, will act as a further motivation to the three-time Major champion in the coming weeks.
It is an invite to play in the Chevron World Challenge; but, to take up the offer of a place in the elite field, Harrington – currently down to 74th in the latest world rankings, must break back into the world’s top-50 by mid-September.
The more immediate motivating factor for Harrington is this week’s added-on appearance in the Wyndham Championship in Greensboro, North Carolina.
Originally due to take in a family holiday in the Bahamas, that has been jettisoned in favour of an attempt to break into the top-125 on the FedEx Cup standings which earns a place in the US Tour’s end-of-season money fest starting with the Barclays next week. And, so, after completing a corporate gig in Atlanta yesterday, the Harrington plane made the shorter trip to North Carolina.
As things stand, Harrington is in 130th position in the FedEx – with all of those players, apart from Tiger Woods, positioned around the bubble due to play in Greensboro – and he acknowledged that his short-term itinerary is now on a week by week basis.
“I hopefully won’t get a week off for three or four weeks,” said Harrington, referring to the FedEx series which sees a reducing number of players competing in the designated tournaments (Barclays-BMW-Deutsche Bank) up to the finale, the Tour championship back in Atlanta.
If Harrington doesn’t make it into the FedEx Cup finals, then his attention will revert back to Europe with the KLM Dutch Open a possible starting point. That, of course, is dependent on how he progresses – or not – in the FedEx.
“There’s a lot of golf to be played this year. There’s time for me to have many wins. I could have a bumper season yet,” he said.
In dropping down the world rankings, Harrington doesn’t – as of now – get into some of the bigger tournaments towards the end of the year.
“I’ve dropped out of the top-50 in the world (which) means I’m not going to be in Chevron, which is guaranteed easy (world) points, (or) HSBC, which is decent points. You look at a week like this (in the PGA) where you work reasonably hard and you get nothing. I could turn up in Chevron and finish last and probably get five times the points I’d get (in the PGA). So, I’ve made it tougher on myself but, there again, I hope to play well and therefore won’t have that issue.
“I believe I’ve found a couple of things that have been bugging me and that have improved. I’m happy in terms of where I need to go.”
With a full seven months to go before the next Major – the Masters next April – Harrington, who hopes to start some work with coach Pete Cowen over the winter, said: “I’m focused on the next couple of months. Georgia will look after itself when we get to January onwards. I want to play well for the last three months of the year, get a number of wins and finish off the season well.”
In contrast to Harrington, Rory McIlroy’s work in the States has finished for the year. Although the 22-year-old has taken up his PGA Tour card for 2012, he is not expected to play his first tournament Stateside until the Accenture Matchplay in February. Instead, McIlroy – who will rest his injured wrist in the coming weeks – will now put his focus on the European Tour for the rest of the season as he tries to chase Luke Donald for the Race to Dubai honours.
In accepting that Donald – who has his eyes set on winning the Order of Merits on both the European Tour and the US Tour – has the Race to Dubai “pretty much wrapped up”, McIlroy aims “to finish as high up on that as possible. There’s still a few events left that I want to try and do well in . . . the HSBC in China, the Dubai World Championship, Hong Kong has always been a nice event for me. I really like Switzerland, the Dunhill Links.”
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