Harrington to stop rot

By Brian Keogh

Padraig Harrington is hoping that good vibes will pay off in this week's $6 million Travelers Championship in Connecticut.

After back to back failures in the Stanford St Jude Classic and the US Open, the Dubliner is bidding to avoid hit third missed cut on the trot at TPC River Highlands.

Harrington hasn't missed three cuts in a row since 1996 and he has no intention of missing out this week.

And he's hoping that Connecticut will prove to be his good luck charm after staying there during his Barclays Classic win in 2005

He said: "I like playing in the Northeast. I won the Barclays at Westchester in New York a few years ago and my family and I have stayed in Connecticut during Westchester.

"They're here this week, too. I love Connecticut. I decided to play here this year because I heard some of things Travelers were doing to the event. And I had heard about the big crowds here in years past."

Harrington, Darren Clarke, Fredrik Jacobsen and Justin Rose are just four of the leading Europeans teeing it up this week.

World No 2 Phil Mickelson has pulled out becuase of the wrist injury that dogged him at Oakmont last week.

But the event still boasts two of the world's top ten in Harrington and Vijay Singh as well as Masters champion Zach Johnson.

And Harrington's caddie Ronan Flood expects his boss to bounce back to form after his US Open disappointment.

Flood said: "Sometimes you get into a bad run and can't get out of it and that's what happened to Padraig.

"His alignment was out early in the week and on a US Open set up like Oakmont it just caught up with him. He'll be fine."

Harrington was in good form in his warm up - but not out of bunkers.

Practising from a bunker on the range, he skulled one effort and yelled "fore!" as it rocketed across the green and crashed off the skybox that surrounds the 18th green.

Embarrassed as everyone looked at him, Harrington smiled and pointed to the golfer next to him.