Pádraig faces early pressure

IF HE were inclined to glance at the world rankings – which yesterday saw American Johnson Wagner jump 106 places to 92nd on the list on the back of his Sony Open win – then Pádraig Harrington, in South Africa for his seasonal debut in the limited-field Volvo Champions tournament at Fancourt, would have noticed his early-season task had just got harder.

The 40-year-old Dubliner has slipped to 89th in the latest world rankings, all of which makes his seasonal return to competition rather timely.

Indeed, time is against him: Harrington must break into the world’s top 64 by early-February if he is to secure a place in the WGC-Accenture Matchplay which, especially in a Ryder Cup year, offers players an edge – in world points and on the money list – in their attempts to make Jose Maria Olazabal’s team for Chicago come September.

In acknowledging that the Ryder Cup, as ever, is one of his goals for the season, Harrington is also aware failing to make the fields for the Accenture and the WGC-Cadillac championship a fortnight later would hurt his chances of making a seventh European team.

“I’ve put myself really behind the eight ball, I’ve got to have a good year to make the team,” affirmed Harirngton, who currently sits in 40th place in the world points list and in 49th on the European Tour table.

He knows it becomes an even bigger ask if he misses the WGC events with their bountiful points.

Harrington – one of three Irish players competing in Fancourt this week alongside Ulstermen Darren Clarke and Michael Hoey – is heading into the event, which has a €350,000 top prize, aware he has a lot of ground to make up in the coming weeks as he follows Fancourt by playing in next week’s Abu Dhabi tournament and then the ATT Pebble Beach Pro-am after which the field for the matchplay is finalise.

After a disappointing season in 2011, Harrington is gung-ho about the season ahead. “I believe I am going to have a good year because I found myself at the end (of 2011) in a very nice place on the golf course.

“I am not carrying any burdens on my shoulder. I am playing the game for the sake of the game and I am finding myself very relaxed when I come off,” he said.

Meanwhile, Peter Dawson, the chief executive of the RA, has paid a visit to Royal Portrush to assess the course’s prospects of being added to the rota of courses for the British Open.

“What was heartening was to see the standard of the roads around Portrush and the number of places to stay. There isn’t one big hotel but there are any number of medium-sized ones. The biggest question, of course, is the commercial aspect of going to Ireland.

“Plus, spectator movement would be difficult. There is a lot of bracken and stuff off the fairways. Even if that were removed, the terrain is so severe it is hard to imagine armies of spectators out there. The course is almost too good to have spectators on it.

“Anyway, no decision has yet been made. I don’t want to give anyone the impression that we are going there. But we do have more people going over to have a look relatively soon.

"And we will be very interested to see how the course copes commercially and in terms of spectator movement when the Irish Open (June 28th-July 1st) is held there later this year. So we are taking it seriously," Dawson told The Scotsmannewspaper.