Pádraig primed for attack

PÁDRAIG HARRINGTON’S analytical brain is always crunching numbers, but there is a clear-cut scenario painted out for the 38-year-old Dubliner as he prepares for this week’s Tour Championship – the finale to the FedEx Cup series – if he is to win the biggest financial prize in golf: he must win the tournament, and Tiger Woods, who heads the points table, must finish third or worse.

“I need some results to go my way,” conceded Harrington, who enjoyed a four-day break at home last week before returning to the United States for the limited 30-man field Tour Championship at East Lake in Atlanta where one eye will be on the tournament itself (with €800,000 to the winner) and another on the FedEx Cup, which has a €6.8 million enticement to the winner.

As things stand, five players have destiny in their own hands. If one of the current top-five – Woods, Steve Stricker, Jim Furyk, Zach Johnson or Heath Slocum – wins the Tour Championship, then that player will also be guaranteed to top the FedEx Cup final points list too. But the in-form Harrington, in sixth place in the standings, is primed to attack . . . and knows that an overdue win on tour could be sufficient to leapfrog the five players ahead of him.

Harrington, who was 130th in the FedEx Cup standings just over a month ago, but then made a dramatic move with a late-season surge in form that has seen him finish in the top-10 in his last five tournaments, including second (Barclays), fourth (Deutsche Bank) and sixth (BMW) in the first three FedEx Cup events, admitted to feeling tiredness before his short break. “I struggled with my focus and routines (in the BMW), which is a sign that I was tired.”

The Irishman’s exertions have been very much worthwhile, with his bank balance improved by almost €1.3 million, but he would dearly love to finish his US campaign with a win (he hasn’t won since last year’s USPGA) before refocusing for the European Tour’s Race to Dubai.

With a planned return to the European Tour on the cards for the remainder of the season, Harrington – his batteries recharged – will seek to keep his post-British Open form going stateside with a return to East Lake where he has a best round of 63, achieved in the first round in 2007 when he eventually finished the tournament in tied-11th position. It will be his fourth appearance in the Tour Championship. Harrington is the only player to have placed top-10 in all three of the build-up tournament to Atlanta.

Although the greens this year are not as fast as they were a year ago (when Camilo Villegas won) the putting surfaces will run at 12 on the stimpmetre, which is faster than they were in New Jersey, Boston and Chicago for the last three events in the FedEx Cup.

Over nine inches of rain fell in the Atlanta area during August, which is one reason for the surfaces being slightly slower than last year.

“The greens won’t be as firm, partly because it’s been so wet this summer and partly because they are a year older and therefore have a small layer of thatch under them now,” explained course superintendent Ralph Kepple in a release from the Golf Course Superintendents Association of America. The greens were all rebuilt prior to last year’s tournament.

Woods will be seeking to claim his second FedEx Cup, having missed out on last year through injury. With six wins on the US Tour already this season, he is guaranteed to top the tour’s money list (with regular tournaments still continuing after the play-offs) but, with no major trophy to show for his efforts in 2009, he will view this as the next best thing. Plus, of course, there are the financial considerations aside from the bragging rights.

Apart from Harrington, England’s Luke Donald is the only other European to have qualified for the no-cut Tour Championship.

In Harrington’s case, aside from the FedEx Cup permutations, this is a tournament in its own right he would love to claim.

And although there is €6.8 million on offer to the winner of the FedEx Cup as bonus money, there’s some €17 million to be divvied out down the field.