Perhaps the most impressive moment of Padraig Harrington’s march to the Open title — a journey with more twists than the Barry Burn in which his hopes almost foundered — came while he sat in the recorders’ hut contemplating the double bogey that ought to have cost him the title.

As Sergio García made his way down the 18th, Harrington turned the volume down on the small television. “I didn’t want to hear any analysis of my six,” he said, as he fought the urge to admit he had just blown the Open. “I sat there in that hut and I was as disciplined as I could be with my focus not to brood or not to go through the ifs and buts and maybes. I never let it cross my mind that I’d just thrown away the Open.”

At that stage, with García yet to miss the 10-foot putt that would have won him the title, Harrington was in a minority of one on the Carnoustie links, so complete had been his collapse with the Claret Jug within reach. Like Jean Van de Velde eight years previously his hopes of outright victory foundered in the Barry Burn, though the Irishman kept his shoes on. Unlike the Frenchman, he woke from his nightmare as Open champion, but for a while on Sunday it looked as if dry feet would be his only consolation.

When he stood on the 18th tee leading by a single shot, Harrington knew a four would require Garcia to birdie one of the tough final two holes to tie. The Irishman had been here before. In the 2002 Open at Muirfield, he had needed a four at the last to join a play-off. Believing a three was needed, he took driver having deployed an iron all week. His tee shot found a bunker, he made bogey and Ernie Els won the title. This time he knew what was required but four strokes and two visits to the Burn later it looked like his chance had gone.

Poor drive
His drive leaked right, pitching on to a bridge across the Barry Burn 260 yards from the tee. For a moment his ball looked like it would trickle across to safety on the 17th fairway, but the golfing gods do not do good bounces on the 18th. Half an hour earlier, Andres Romero had seen his ball balloon out of bounds off the wall of the Burn, taking his chances of victory with it, and now Harrington’s toppled into the fast-flowing brown stream six inches from the end of the bridge.

His second shot, taken under penalty, was worse. Caught heavy, it never looked like reaching the green and toppled inevitably into the water downstream from where his first had disappeared. Given the turmoil affecting his innards, Harrington's up and down was testament to the competitive spirit that has enabled him to make the most of his talents.

Accompanied to his victory press conference by his son Paddy, whose consoling hug on the 18th green first time around had helped put events into perspective, Harrington explained how he stayed positive. “When I hit it in the water (for the second time) I was disappointed,” he said. “But once I walked up there, I said, look, I’ve got to get this up and down. I kind of had a feeling, even though things hadn’t gone for me, I had a feeling that I could chip this in. If I’m going to win an Open, my break is going to happen at some stage.

“I hit a lovely pitch. Holing the putt that was probably the most pressure-filled putt I had of the day. If I missed it, it was the end of it, and to hole was it was a great boost to me. That was the moment that I thought, now maybe things are going to go my way.”

The power of positive thought was evident in the way he began the play-off, birdieing the first hole as Garcia bogeyed to open a two-shot cushion which was enough, just, to bring him his first Open and end Europe’s eight-year wait for a major champion. Harrington’s misadventure at the 18th was all the more remarkable given what had gone before. For 17 holes he could do no wrong.

His victory will be hugely popular, and not just in Ireland, where the celebrations are likely to match those that greeted Europe’s Ryder Cup victory last year. Harrington is among the most magnanimous and well-liked professionals on the Tour, proof by his own reluctant admission that you can aspire to win and be nice with it. “It’s something to aspire to,” he said. “I wanted to win that play-off so badly today but I genuinely felt sorry for Sergio when I won it.”

Sympathy for García should not detract from Harrington’s achievement. An outstanding amateur in Ireland, he turned pro only because the guys he was beating did so, and hoped for a journeyman’s career at best. Last night in the most dramatic circumstances he surpassed himself.


The Guardian