Pádraig admits concern for Ryder place

THE TRENDSETTER, the guy who led the way in annexing major titles, has a bit of recalibrating to do. What’s important, Pádraig Harrington – more than anyone else – knows it, especially in his quest to make Europe’s Ryder Cup team for the match at Celtic Manor in October.

You see, although top players plan their years around competing in the majors and chasing a claret jug or a Wanamaker trophy or a green jacket, the Ryder Cup is also tapped into computers as a biennial rather than an annual goal. Once you’ve been there, you don’t want to miss out.

As things stand, Harrington doesn’t have an automatic place on the team. “It does concern me, there’s no doubt about it, it’s going to take a bit of a push . . . it’s a precarious position because there’s a lot of good players who are not in the team.

“It’s not like other years. If you want to look at who’s not automatically qualified, there is half a dozen, if not more, players who you might have picked on the team at the start of the year.”

Harrington – whose appearance here in the JP McManus Pro-Am represents his last competitive outing before he prepares for next week’s British Open at St Andrews by heading to Scotland’s east coast on Friday to get reacquainted with the Old Course – is currently seventh on the world points list and 14th on the European points list, so would require a captain’s “wild card” pick from Colin Montgomerie if he didn’t make a huge leap up either qualifying table.

Would he consider altering his schedule to take in the Gleneagles championship, the final qualifying event before the European team is finalised and which happens to clash with the start of the FedEx series on the US Tour?

“I’ll consider everything . . . (but) let’s hope I’m qualified. Let’s hope I do the job over the summer and don’t have to put myself in that position. I’m working on the principle that I’m going to get the job done before then.”

Clearly, Harrington – aware that time is running out – has sufficient confidence in his own game to get the job done.

When it was put to him yesterday that one of the most goggled queries on the internet search engine after the US Open concerned the plight of his game, Harrington shook his head. “I’m among the top in stroke average on the US Tour,” said Harrington, who is ranked seventh (his average is 69.95 as against Ernie Els’s 69.54).

“There’s nothing wrong with my game that doesn’t require a bit of patience, a little easing up; don’t try too hard. I just need to let it happen a little bit.”

Five years ago, he won the JP McManus Invitational – donating his €250,000 total winnings from finishing as top pro, top daily pro and top team pro – back to charity – and it served as the launch pad for his subsequent three major wins (in the 2007 and 2008 British Opens and the 2008 US PGA).

The British Open is around the corner, the Ryder Cup down the road. Maybe this is the perfect place for Harrington to go with the flow.