Harrington cashing in on hard work
Padraig Harrington took his August earnings to a cool $1.3m at The Barclays and set his sights on a $10m FedEx Cup delivery.
The Dubliner continued his amazing turnaround in form when he snatched a share of second place behind shock winner Heath Slocum in the first event of the PGA Tour’s megabucks play-off series.
Sunday’s tie for second with Tiger Woods, Ernie Els and Steve Stricker was the 33rd runner-up finish of Harrington’s career, boosting him from 66th to 14th in the FedEx Cup points race.
But Harrington only has eyes for victory these days and a win in this week’s Deutsche Bank Championship at TPC Boston would give the Dubliner a great chance of pocketing the $10m pay-off for the top points winner after the season-ending Tour Championship in Atlanta from September 24-27.
Up two places to ninth in the world, Ireland's triple major winner is far from frustrated with his recent near misses, explaining: “I'm happy enough to be pushing along. I know wins will come along. If I don't win this week, maybe next week. That's the way it is.
“It's nice to be in contention. It's nice to play better as I got more in contention. That's always a good sign. My focus is better, I hit the ball better. Coming down the stretch, that's exactly where I want to be.”
Despite changing missed cuts for title charges, refused to get carried away by the dramatic turnaround in form that has seen him follow the worst seven months of his career with three successive top drawer performances.
Pleased with his last two weeks, he said: “It's only two tournaments. I think the first six months, that was frustrating.”
Second in the Bridgestone Invitational ($665,000) and tenth in the US PGA ($150,633), Harrington pocketed $495,000 at Liberty National to take his August earnings over the million dollar mark.
He celebrated his 38th birthday in New York on Monday by attending the first day of the US Open tennis at Flushing Meadows as a guest of his sponsors Citizen.
And he revealed that the key to playing so well in recent weeks has been keeping on an even keel.
He said: “It was the change in my mindset that helped me to turn my form around, by getting myself more into my routines and target I felt so much better on the course.
“I was much happier as well; I wasn’t getting annoyed at myself for hitting a poor shot.”
But as Harrington appears to get better and better, world No 1 Woods is becomingly increasingly frustrated by his lack of form on the greens.
Could the American appears to be feeling the pressure as he approaches Jack Nickalus’ record of 18 major titles? His putting is certainly letting him down when it counts.
He failed to putt well in the Masters or the US Open and it was a similar story at the US PGA, where Korea’s YE Yang took advantage to became the first Asian-born major winner.
On Sunday Woods missed a seven footer on the 18th that would have given him the clubhouse lead and forced Stricker or Slocum to birdie the last for victory. He missed and Slocum made a 20 footer for par to win.
Shrugging off Woods' miss as the law of averages, Slocum said: “Usually he makes it. I guess you can't make 'em all.”
But it appears that Woods can’t make any of the big putts that count while Harrington has become the game’s top clutch putter.
The 14 footer he holed on the 18th on Sunday was the latest in a long list of top putts under pressure and if he can keep up the form he has shown over the past month, he is sure to challenge Woods for many majors over the next few years.
Right now he’s happy to concentrate on denying the world No 1 the FedEx Cup millions
He said: “I know that I need to win at least two of the four FedEx Cup tournaments to have a chance of winning it. The best way for me to do this is to get myself into contention on Sunday.”
Woods is still top of the FedEx Cup standings and has committed to playing the three remaining play-off events.
Harrington will be his big rival in Boston this week and again next week in the BMW Championship at Cog Hill in St Louis, where the top 70 will jostle to make the 30-man finale in Atlanta.