Pádraig Harrington returned home from the United States striking a low-key tone ahead of this week’s 3 Irish Open. The three-time major winner left Florida last night following an unsuccessful week at The Players Championship at TPC Sawgrass, which was won by Sweden’s Henrik Stenson.
Having admitted last week he was fighting his “addiction” to his working on his swing, and would concentrate on his strengths, Harrington last night said this week’s Irish Open at Baltray would probably come too soon for those strengths to reappear in his game.
“Obviously now I’ve got a tournament coming up next week so I’ve got to start thinking about that,” he said.
“Every week you’re learning something and going forward a little bit. I still think I won’t be quite ready for next week but I certainly know where I’m at.
“It’s a combination of needing to take technical stuff onto the golf course and going from thinking about it to not thinking about it.
“At the moment I’m kind of in-between thinking and not thinking about it, in-between working on it and letting it happen.”
Although he did not shoot a sub-70 round in Florida and finished two-over-par overall and 10 shots adrift of Stenson, Harrington did concede he had made progress.
“I am further on in the sense that I can see that there’s light at the end of the tunnel,” he said, although he added his focus was still lacking.
“The problem when you’re not 100 per cent focused is that you do make errors. It’s not the good shots that change it’s the bad shots really. When you’re not as sharp as you should be you don’t recover.”
Harrington is also not expecting the supportive home crowd at Baltray to help him regain that focus.
“Unfortunately not,” he said. “That doesn’t happen to me, I’m not that type of guy.
“It takes me a while to get focused but I do know how to get focused. It’s not something you can switch on like a light. Well, you can some days but that’s very hit and miss.”
Harrington dropped one place to eighth in the new world rankings, with Stenson having climbed above him from ninth to fifth spot.
Rory McIlroy, who missed his first cut on the USPGA tour at Sawgrass, also dropped one place to 19th, while Graeme McDowell is down to 50th from 47th.
Stenson is hoping the biggest victory of his career can quickly translate into success at the majors.
The Swede turned in a flawless six-under-par final round 66 as the rest of the field faltered to beat Ian Poulter by four strokes and win the unofficial fifth major.
Coming after a year in which he scored his first top-10 finishes at the majors with a tie for third place at The Open at Birkdale and tie for fourth at the USPGA Championship at Oakland Hills, Stenson feels victory in Florida can be the springboard to further success in golf’s biggest tournaments.
“Last year was a great year. I felt in the past it was a little bit annoying not to have a top-10 in a major and so on, and I definitely got to put an end to that question with a third at the Open,” Stenson said
“And then the one I really felt like I had a good chance to win going into the last day was the PGA Championship. I felt like I was one out of four or five guys that had a good chance to win it. It obviously didn’t happen that day, but it’s all about putting yourself in that position.
“With the experience today, I know even better that I hope I can pull it off when it matters.”
World rankings:1 T Woods (USA), 2 P Mickelson (USA), 3 S Garcia (Sp), 4 G Ogilvy (Aus), 5 H Stenson (Swe), 6 K Perry (USA), 7 P Casey (Eng), 8 P Harrington(Irl), 9 V Singh (Fiji), 10 C Villegas (Col), 11 R Karlsson (Swe), 12 S O'Hair (USA), 13 S Stricker (USA), 14 J Furyk (USA), 15 A Kim (USA), 16 L Westwood (Eng), 17 E Els (Rsa), 18 I Poulter (Eng), 19 R McIlroy(NIrl), 20 M Weir (Can).
Other Irish:50 G McDowell, 89 D Clarke, 104 G Maybin, 137 D McGrane, 154 M Hoey, 165 Peter Lawrie, 166 P McGinley.
