Choker? Underachiever? What a load of boloney. It takes a lot to stand in a pair of size nine shoes on a diseased green with your heart in your mouth knowing that you have a must-make putt to win one of Europe's flagship tournaments, but that's what Padraig Harrington - proving he has the heart of a lion, and not that of a scared cat - did to take the Deutsche Bank-SAP Open TPC of Europe title at Hamburg yesterday

A week after failing to finish off the job in the Benson & Hedges International at the Belfry, Harrington - securing his seventh career PGA European Tour title, and his second of the season - became a pillar-to-post winner by manfully fending off a last-day charge from Denmark's Thomas Bjorn.

"It would have been a real dent to my confidence if I hadn't won," he admitted. "After last week, I wondered if I was back to the old situation of not being able to convert things."

He can rest assured there is no backward tumble in his quest for perfection, that the graph remains very much in an upwards direction.

Having stared the world's number one, Tiger Woods, in the eye for the first two days, and then taken a two-shot lead into the last day's play, Harrington finished off the job as coolly as a lion who has stalked his prey until the hunger proves unbearable.

After the birdie-fest that was part of a roller-coaster final round, with three different players taking the lead at various stages, a winning par at the first hole of a sudden-death play-off - after the two players had finished on a 72-hole aggregate of 19-under-par 269 - was sufficient to secure victory for Harrington.

The Dubliner's winning cheque for €450,000 took his season's earnings to €979,754 and propelled him to first place on the Volvo Order of Merit, ahead of Ernie Els.

Rather than the monetary gain, however, it was the satisfaction of finishing off the task that most appealed to Harrington: "It would have been rough on me if, after leading a tournament all the way for the second week in a row, I didn't manage to win. It's a big confidence booster to get over the finish line, and it is nice to say you're on the right track."

He added: "What if I hadn't won? That question crossed my mind during the round, but, at the play-off, I was saying to myself: 'What will I say if I don't win?'But, to be honest, I did everything right. I felt I was always in control, and I putted really well, which made up for last Sunday."

Harrington plans to miss this week's PGA Championship at Wentworth, mainly because the course at this time of the year - fast fairways and over-seeded greens - to use his own words, "does my head in". Indeed, he won't reappear in Europe until after the US Open in Chicago, as he intends to build up for the season's second major by playing two tournaments in the US, the Memorial and the Kemper Open.

"The thing about Wentworth is that I have struggled every year and I decided to base my schedule around preparing for the US Open," explained Harrington. "I'm playing well, obviously, and feel that maybe I could go there (Wentworth) and overcome the problems I traditionally have there . . . but, by doing that, I am going to mess up my US Open preparations. I'd be playing six weeks in a row and it could end up ruining the rest of the year for me."

Yesterday's win provided further proof of Harrington's ability to bounce back from adversity. When he missed the cut in the Masters at Augusta last month, it was the first time since the 2001 US PGA that he hadn't managed to stay around for the weekend. Rather than rush back to the circuit, he stuck with his plan to take a three-week break and returned for last week's B&H, where he led for three rounds, only to lose out to Paul Casey on the final day and take the 19th runners-up finish of his professional career.

For much of yesterday's final round at Gut Kaden, it seemed that fate would not be his friend. Bjorn emerged as the principal challenger after shooting a career-low round of 63, and Harrington's 68 - which tied him with the Dane - came only after he holed a 12-footer for par on the 18th green, one of the worst affected by fusarium patch disease.

That par putt was bravely holed, and he won at the first tie hole after Bjorn's approach went into a greenside bunker and he failed to get up-and-down.

He compared his win here to that which he achieved in the Dunhill Links Championship last October, the week after the Ryder Cup. "It's about satisfaction, rather than jubilation," he insisted.

That win in Scotland was the start of a remarkable finish to last year, which also saw Harrington win the BMW Asian Open (the first event on the 2003 schedule) and then beat Woods in the Target World Challenge.

If this latest triumph acts as a similar catalyst, he won't be complaining.