TOUR NEWS:IF THE majors are the prime barometer for Pádraig Harrington's season, then you can take it the mercury levels have nowhere else to go for the rest of 2008.
However, the Dubliner - who returns to tournament play at this week's Barclays Classic at Ridgewood in New Jersey - has, a month ahead of the Ryder Cup, reset new personal goals to bring the FedEx Cup and the US Tour money list into his new list of ambitions.
Harrington has confirmed he will compete in all four of the FedEx Cup tournaments, which finish with the Tour Championship in Atlanta the week after the Ryder Cup.
The first three events - the Barclays, the Deutsche Bank and the BMW are scheduled for the next three successive weeks, before a week's break in tournament play ahead of the Ryder Cup with the season's finale, the Tour Championship, to follow - will see a week-by-week reduction in the number of players eligible to chase the ultimate top prize of $10 million (€6.8 million).
For Harrington, whose back-to-back major wins in the British Open and the US PGA have made him a very strong contender for player of the year honours in the United States (although there remains a body of opinion, apparently, that Tiger Woods's performances in the first part of the season before knee surgery prematurely ended his year's campaign merit consideration), the FedEx Cup - in just its second season of operation - is very much within his grasp.
The points accumulated throughout the season have been re-jigged after the weekend's Wyndham Championship (won by Sweden's Carl Pettersson) to make the final four tournaments more open, but Harrington remains in fourth place - technically third, because of Woods's absence - behind Kenny Perry and Phil Mickelson.
The impact Harrington has made in the States this season has been phenomenal, the two major wins among five top-five finishes he has made.
Apart from the FedEx Cup standings, Harrington is also fourth on the US Tour money list with season's winnings of $4,297,73 (€2,925,22 million).
But, again, he really only has Mickelson and Perry to overcome as Woods is unable to play again this season: Harrington trails second-placed Mickelson by just $278,504 (€189,562).
This week's Barclays has a purse of $7 million (€4.8 million), with almost $1.3 million (€884,835) to the winner, while the Deutsche Bank in Boston and the BMW in St Louis have similar purses.
The FedEx Cup was established as a season-ending finale to the US Tour, with the top 144 players off the points list qualifying for the Barclays.
The field will be reduced to the top 120 for the Deutsche Bank and to 70 for the BMW championship, with only the top-30 qualifying for the Tour Championship.
Harrington, who took a week off in North Carolina last week, where he is having a house built at the White Oak resort in Tryon, heads back to tournament play as one of seven players who are virtually certain of qualification for next month's Ryder Cup at Louisville in Kentucky.
Harrington, Lee Westwood, Sergio Garcia, Henrik Stenson, Robert Karlsson, Miguel Angel Jimenez and Graeme McDowell have all secured their places as time runs out in the qualifying campaign.
Interestingly, a number of players on the bubble - or currently outside automatic selection - have taken different routes to try to cement their places.
Ian Poulter and Paul Casey have decided to play in the Barclays (the last tournament in the States which counts towards the world ranking points list), while Justin Rose, Oliver Wilson and Soren Hansen - who currently occupy the last three places on the European points list, but who are all vulnerable - have decided to play in the KLM Dutch Open at Zandvoort where contenders just outside the loop, among them Martin Kaymer, Ross Fisher, Nick Dougherty and Soren Kjeldsen, are also in action.
There are seven Irish players in the field at the Dutch Open - Paul McGinley, Damien McGrane, Darren Clarke, Peter Lawrie, Gary Murphy, Rory McIlroy and Mark Campbell - in what is the penultimate counting event towards the European points list for the Ryder Cup.
That qualification campaign ends at next week's Johnnie Walker championship in Gleneagles, after which captain Nick Faldo will announce his two wild-card picks.
As things stand, it would take something rather special from Clarke over the next two tournaments if he is to influence Faldo and possibly - as he did at the K Club two years ago - earn a place as a captain's pick.
Currently, it is felt that Poulter and Casey are the strongest contenders for a pick from Faldo, although Westwood hasn't been shy in making it known he would advocate a pick for Clarke, who celebrated this 40th birthday last week and has been an ever-present since the 1997 match at Valderrama.
McDowell, who consolidated his debut appearance in the Ryder Cup with a top-15 finish in the US PGA, has decided not to play this week but will reappear on tour at next week's tournament in Gleneagles and will then take another week off before preparing for the match by playing in the Mercedes Benz championship in Cologne.
