Harrington to take Ireland’s LET stars for dinner in Morocco

Ronan MacNamara
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Padraig Harrington (Photo by Richard Heathcote/Getty Images)

Ronan MacNamara

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Wherever, whenever, Pádraig Harrington will always make sure the Irish get together for dinner and this week in Morocco is no different.

Five Irish women are playing the Ladies European Tour season opening Lalla Meryem Cup at Royal Dar Es Salam while the Champions Tour plays next to them in the Trophy Hassan II.

Harrington met Annabel Wilson and Sara Byrne on the practice range ahead of tomorrow’s event and offered to meet them, Lauren Walsh, Olivia Mehaffey and Anna Foster for dinner one of the nights this week and he will surely pass on some valuable nuggets of information about how to navigate life on tour.

For Harrington himself, he returns to a tournament he won when it was a regular tour event. The year was 2007 and the three-time major winner had already captured the first of his two Open Championships and topped off the year with a three shot win over Darren Clarke that October.

“Yeah, has been a few years, 2007. Yeah, you remember some of the holes and some of the shots you hit during the winning tournament,” recalled Harrington.

“Obviously they’ve redone the greens here since then, so it a bit more work. Normally you go back to a golf course you’ve won on, you kind of saunter around in practice in somewhat joy. Should always enjoy it, but here there’s obviously some difficult greens.

“I don’t know if I can cover all the options this week so just try and hit a few — kind of ask yourself what shots you’re going to be asked to hit. Looks like a few deep bunkers around the greens, a few pitch and runs like that, up-slopes. So you mightn’t play them on every hole, but if you get used to them on one hole, you’ll be able to manage all 18.

“So that’s the kind of way, can’t cover everything. You have to try not panic and cover everything. You’ve got to assume that you’ll be all right on the day.”

Harrington is playing his fourth successive tournament having begun his season on the DP World Tour’s Middle East swing.

The 53-year-old teed it up in the Hero Dubai Desert Classic, missing the cut before showing flashes of brilliance, if unsustained, in Ras Al Khaimah and Bahrain.

Harrington’s long time caddie Ronan Flood convinced him to give it one more crack in Morocco this week as he searches for a tenth Champions Tour win.

“I played three on the regular tour. We weren’t meant to play it and my caddie, Ronan, suggested it. He said, look, you’ve won on this golf course, you’re going to go home, you’re going to think about going back to the States, all the way over and back. He said, why don’t you play Morocco on the way home, add it in. Once he said it, it made a lot of sense. Hopefully on Saturday night it will be the right decision.”

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