Pádraig Harrington was both delighted and surprised to learn that, when he stands on the first tee and launches a drive down the fairway (hopefully), he’ll set a new record for the most consecutive appearances in a National Open on the DP World Tour.
“I’m somewhat surprised because obviously I started pretty late,” he said in his pre-tournament press conference at Doonbeg when he was informed of the slice of history. “You know, you see young lads playing now at 15 years of age in their National Opens at times. I played my first one when I was 24.
“So, yeah, 31 years consecutive, it’s a nice run. It says – I’d like to tell you I never got injured but I think I played a few while injured.
“Yeah, proud of that.”
This week, his 31st consecutive appearance at an Irish Open, sees him surpass Seve Ballesteros’ 30 straight years playing in the Spanish Open, and that too was news to the 55-year-old, who’d assumed that it was just an Irish Open record he’d set.
“Wow, I just thought it was The Irish Open. So of all opens, the No. 1? Gee, whiz. And I still think I can win it,” he quipped.
Though he now competes mostly on the PGA Tour Champions circuit, Harrington remains one of the marquee draws whenever he tees it up on the DP World Tour, and that’s especially true at an Irish Open.
And he appreciates the support he receives from the fans as much as the fans appreciate him.
“Definitely the atmosphere, the fans,” he replied when asked what his favourite thing about an Irish Open was. “I struggled at the start with that. It was a lot of stress and just put a lot of pressure on you. I think it takes awhile for you to figure out that everybody wanting you to do well is not them expecting to you do well and once you get a handle on the fact that it’s just a genuine hope that you do well — like it always felt like you were letting them down back in the day if you didn’t hit a perfect shot. Took a while before I got comfortable with that and I do enjoy that now with the atmosphere, the fans.
“I like the fact that the European players who come over loved the atmosphere, love the actual event. They questioned our weather at times, but everybody enjoys the event.
“Amgen have come in and really upped the game of The Irish Open. It’s one of the premiere events on The European Tour. The players love it. They appreciate it.”
Harrington’s sole victory in his National Open came at Adare Manor in 2007, just weeks before he became the first Irishman to win the Open Championship since Fred Daly back in 1947.
And now, 19 years on, he still counts that victory as his greatest individual on-course achievement outside of his three major wins, and believes that winning it – and being able to handle the stress and pressure it carried – was pivotal in turning him into a major champion.
“I said it at the time, and most players now will follow suit, that the four majors are the biggest thing in golf. But everybody, your National Open is your fifth major, and I would have felt that at the time, as I was talking about earlier, how much at an Irish Open I felt more pressure, much more pressure at an Irish Open than a major. The stress, all the way through the week, everything was stressful,” he admitted.
“So winning in 2007 was a big step in how to manage a big tournament week, how to handle the pressure from Monday morning onwards, how to deal with all that sort of stuff and get your head in the game.
“Yeah, it was a massive step, and I’ve been quite lucky in my career, all the way through my career, I seem to have managed to win at the next level, the next step, and The Irish Open was very much that, making me feel comfortable in a pressure-filled environment that I was desperate to try and win in, and doing that only solidifies your confidence for going out in a major.
“I can guarantee you, I felt the same way trying to win an Irish Open as trying to win a major. It definitely brought a lot of self-confidence being able to do that because, you know, you turn up at an Irish Open and from Monday morning onwards, it’s like you’re leading a tournament going into Sunday: The expectation, the talk, the questions. You can win a tournament and nobody would know you were there until late Sunday afternoon, sort of thing, not when it’s your National Open. Like I said a lot going on. You can’t have a perfectly organised week. You have to swing with the punches, and that’s what you learn after a while.
“I think earlier in my career, I fought against that. I tried to treat them like regular events but that’s not what they are. Your National Open is different. You have to acknowledge it and actually accept it that, you know, there’s a lot of different things going on.”
As for the challenge that awaits this week? The last time Harrington played a competitive round at Doonbeg – and it was only semi-competitive really – was in 2002 when he faced course designer Greg Norman in a ceremonial contest to officially open the course.
But the golf course now, renovated under Martin Hawtree’s direction, is vastly different from the one Harrington experienced back then.
“You know, if I designed the golf course, I would have never got another job again because it was so crazy and funky but it was brilliant for a links golf course,” Harrington joked.
“It was exactly — if you were going to design a links golf course that was never going to host a tournament but people were going to come and play, it was perfect. It was really quickie, crazy things, crisscrossing holes, bunkers and grains, you could be on the green and couldn’t see the pin. Like really mad stuff. Which that’s kind of how you imagine a links golf course a hundred years ago was.
“Obviously since then, and especially since Trump has taken over the ownership, it’s turned it into a tournament golf course. It’s softened up a lot of things and brought things into being a bit — I suppose you would use the word fairer but certainly more standardised in competitive golf because you know, the course that we played in 2002, that was crazy. Brilliant crazy, but like as I said it was fun. Somewhere you’d like to go and play with your mates but you couldn’t have played a championship tournament on it, and certainly this one now is very — compared to the old one, it’s just completely toned down, softened down, and very pleasant to play.”
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