Rónán MacNamara in Straffan
Pádraig Harrington joked that a career in politics would massively interfere with his global golf schedule and while becoming President of Ireland is out of the question he still believes he can be crowned King of the K Club with a first Amgen Irish Open victory since 2007.
Harrington, now 54, is bidding to become the oldest winner on the DP World Tour but with star names like Rory McIlroy, Shane Lowry, Tyrrell Hatton, Brooks Koepka and Patrick Reed in the field alongside a collection of young guns, he knows that he needs a lot to go his way this week on what is his 30th consecutive Irish Open start.
“Physically, I’m well-capable of winning,” he said in his pre-tournament press conference. “I played the Scottish Open last year and I just tried so hard and I was well off the cut line, two or three shots, and I was actually thinking on the ninth of the Scottish Open, Sunday night of the Scottish Open, that was the end of my you think man tournaments.
“Then the following week at the Open I was top 10 in strokes gained tee to green, so clearly I was good enough. I think I was close to very high up — like in the top 10 at the BMW PGA in terms of ball-striking. So physically I can do it. The putting comes and goes and mentally it comes and goes at times, but you can always catch lightning in a bottle with the mental game.
“It’s possible. I think the issue for me is words like “it’s possible.” So when you tend to win is when you’re very comfortable that your game is good enough. In 2002, 2007, 2008, I wasn’t looking over my shoulder. I was thinking about me. This week I’m thinking I need to be the best version of me to win. I need to get the breaks to win. Everything has to go for me to win this week, whereas if I go to the Champions Tour I’m comfortable that if I play my own game, I’ll be in contention.
“That doesn’t mean you’re going to win tournaments because things have to happen for you to win: Look, if I do my own thing this week, play my own game, I’m going to be there or thereabouts on Sunday, and if I do the right things in the last nine holes, I’ll have a great chance, whereas here I’m kind of on edge Thursday morning I need to be thinking I’m doing the right things all the way through.
“I’m coming here and I’m thinking I need a big week, whereas you win when you just come here and be yourself and play your own game. I know they are cliches, but that’s how it happens.”
Harrington isn’t just a legend of Irish golf but one of Irish sport. He is probably Ireland’s most liked sportsman and arguably our greatest. Loved everywhere he goes, surely he would be a prime candidate to take over from Michael D Higgins in Áras an Uachtaráin?
“No. I’m very busy with what I’m doing,” said Harrington. “It’s an incredible honour, obviously, for anybody to become the president of Ireland but a very difficult job in the sense of I don’t think my game would be up to it. I’d have to improve that. I think being a statesman is tough, not having your own opinions. As you know, I have a lot of opinions, so not having your own opinions is not great, and not being able to leave the country wouldn’t be great for me either, playing 30 golf events a year.
“It’s not on my radar for sure, but it would be an incredible honour for whoever becomes president, and it’s a tough act to follow. We’ve done very well with our presidents over the last 30 years or so for sure. I suppose more than that, but the ones in recent times are the ones I remember, and they’ve been brilliant.”
Harrington doesn’t have the fire in the belly for a political career but the desire still burns fiercely for competitive golf. With two senior major championship victories this season, the Dubliner is exempt into three of the four main majors next season as he keeps rolling the dice for a fourth crown.
“I have this theory that I fit very nicely, certainly up to my age group, most careers last about 20 years, but it’s seven or eight years before you start getting into it and peaking. You probably have 18 months, two years of the real peak, a couple years after that, and then 15 to 20 years you’re burnt out. You’re still playing but you’re burnt out, and I would have mirrored that. So many people.
“I do see the peak of people’s careers happening much earlier. That 18-month run, two-season run can happen two or three years, four years into their career, but nobody is ever good after the peak. That’s the nature of the game. So yeah, burnout comes, and it would have come for me in 2016, around then, about 20 years in. I looked at it and did a number of different things. I did a bit of coaching, did a bit of commentary, all that sort of stuff, and I realised I actually really liked playing golf. So I kind of looked at it a different way, got a little bit more relaxed about it, didn’t try as hard, took away some of the stuff that was making it — I basically couldn’t go at the pace I was trying to go at. I couldn’t go at the pace I would have been going at when I was a young man.
“I found a new lease on life. The Champions Tour has definitely helped with that. The strange thing is I play better, the temptation is to go back to working harder and going back to trying harder. It’s pretty simple. I describe it like this: 15 years ago if somebody said we’re going for dinner, I would have gone, I’ve got physio, I’ve got to get in the gym, I’ve got to do this, I’ve got to do that recovery, all that. Now I kind of go, we’re going for dinner, great, I’ll change everything to go for that dinner. I’ll still go to the gym, I’ll still do my physio. But my priorities, I wouldn’t be anywhere near as professional as I would have been 15 years ago because I can’t.
“It was burning me out trying too hard. Getting up three and a half hours before your tee time, a young man can do that. I watch the young guys and I see them do the stuff in the gym and all that, and I go, yeah, I used to do all that. You just can’t keep that pace up.
“I’m reinvigorated because I found a new way. I’ve always loved playing golf. I’ve always loved practising, but I do have to have a different outlook. I think it comes to most people in their life, they get to a stage in their own job where they’ve got all this expertise because they’ve kind of hit a wall. The best solution is to try and get rid of some of the stuff that’s annoying them and keep the stuff that they’re good at and experienced at, and that’s the kind of way I’ve tried with the golf.”
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