Harrington tries to get to grips with game

GOLF: Keith Duggan follows the Dubliner as an old injury and a new problem surface

Tramping  through Surrey's leafy paradise, across a course that is the pride of the Range Rover set, Padraig Harrington cuts an unmistakeable figure. He walks through the fairways of Wentworth with his affable sergeant major's stride, all straight back and flailing limbs.

Beside him is the feisty little Canadian Mike Weir, the ice hockey nut, the left-hander, the eternal worker. Mike is quiet but Harrington doesn't mind that. They talk a little about American sports but although their tee shots are magnetically drawn to one another for much of the day, the conversation is polite and brief.

Harrington has much to consider. Reality bit after the highs of the Ryder Cup and his tremendous win at St Andrews. All the old ailments returned again at the outset of this, the first round of matchplay. First, the cursed neck ache that refused to go. "You know it didn't bother me at all at St Andrews. Today it was worse in the morning, not so bad in the afternoon. But it's always better," he added with a sly grin, "when the putts are falling."

And then there are the private concerns that Harrington likes to wrestle with. He sighs when he confesses that he has been having on-course struggles of faith with his grip. He allows that he has been gripping and regripping the club seeking the elusive comfortable lock.

"Good grief, the next match could take forever," ventures one of the touring golf writers in mock horror. Harrington laughs and holds up his hands in protest.

"There is nothing wrong with regripping," he argues, "so long as you are not aware of it. It doesn't even matter how many times you do it. It's just that I feel myself doing it, that's the problem.

"And obviously if I am thinking about it I am not thinking about what I ought to be. And practice can actually make it worse. My grip is good, there is nothing wrong with it. I am just tightening up during the swing."

At this stage of the season, he feels happy but battered. Chasing the European Order of Merit and still alive in this tournament, he admits that it is the white tape of the close season that he is chasing. "It's terrible to say it, but I can't wait until the season is finished."

While out there, though, he is still giving it his all, patient and fastidious and even-tempered as ever. On the afternoon ninth Harrington took an interminable time in arriving to examine his tee shot, on the outskirts of woodland. A large crowd had already gathered around the ball, ghoulish and dubious as to how he would play out of it.

"How the hell did it get there?" the Irishman wondered aloud when he saw his ball. Around him laughter broke. They like the Dubliner around these sedate parts. Like his temperament, the courteous way he acknowledges their applause, his smile. The way he plays. He bangs his way from that predicament through a cluster of trees stripped bare by autumn.

"Dip. Dip!" raps Harrington. The flight is too strong and he grimaces. Harrington is happy to write himself off for today's match. He is looking forward to playing Sergio Garcia, quirks and all. The Spaniard can be as emotive as Weir was reserved.

"Whatever," says Harrington evenly, "It doesn't bother me. The hardest thing to deal with can be when something totally unexpected happens. Like if Sergio comes out tomorrow and didn't say a word. But you don't expect that to happen. I am looking forward to playing him, I just wish I was playing a bit better."