Harrington loses his shape
Padraig Harrington gets stick from everyone from couriers to the petrol pump attendants when he goes through a bad run.
But the Dubliner was so upbeat after crashing to his seventh missed cut of the season in the US Open that you get the impression he’s not all that worried.
Asked how he’d handle the questions about his game from casual callers to his home, he could joke: “I just won’t answer the door.”
But behind that door he’s secretly wondering how he can pull all the elements of his game together before he tries to win a hat-trick of Open titles at Turnberry in four weeks’ time.
And he confessed that he must rebuild his confidence in his driving after completing losing the plot at punishing Bethpage Black.
He hit just three fairways from 14 in a second successive 76 - 15 fairways if you count a re-load on his final hole after he had carved a drive into jungle territory.
Booed at one stage by drunken fans as he missed the cut by eight shots, what worries him more than the number of cuts he has missed this year is his failure to pass the driving test.
The L-plates are still on after a swing tweaking process that has left him struggling to find a consistent shot shape off the tee.
The draw he used to win the 2007 Open is gone and the fade that gave him two majors last year is now unreliable.
He confessed: “I don’t have any shape off the tee at the moment and that would be an issue.
“If I hit it with a big draw, that would be fine. Or if I hit it with a big cut, that would be fine. But I actually have no shape.
“I am aiming at the middle of the fairway and I have only got half the fairway to aim at if I hit it left or I hit it right.
“I hit a bad one and then I start poking and prodding at it.”
With four weeks to go before he chases a hat-trick of Open titles at Turnberry, he has two weeks to prepare for warm up events on tight courses at the French Open and the Irish PGA at the European Club.
Insisting that patience is the key, he said: “I have never been the type of person that worries about results in the short term. I know if I keep doing the right things that it has worked before and it will work again.
“I’ve never missed four cuts in a row. But such is life. You can’t do anything about it. You have got to stay patient. What can you do? It is a fact and there it is.
“You go off and there is always next week which is a nice thing in golf. I will wait for that and go out there and play.
"What I love about the game is the way it goes, the ups and downs, and how a player just has to keep on the level path and not get bogged down and worried about results short term and make sure that things are progressing – that he stays on top of it and doesn’t get dragged into thinking about it too much and just keeps doing the right things over and over.
“As my caddie pointed out on the last green, I’m the only player walking around with two major trophies at the moment so I can’t feel too bad about it.”