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Padraig Harrington: The Grinder

4 minute read
Eben Harrell

Padraig Harrington’s practice range in the backyard of his Dublin home comes equipped with floodlights. When his wife hauls him in after midnight, as she often does, the Irish golfer retires to a specially designed indoor range in his basement. At most tournaments, Harrington is the last golfer to leave the practice ground; at one event this year he hid a stash of balls behind a hospitality tent so he could sneak back out to practice after the staff went home. As is common to addicts, those close to Harrington try to wean him off his habit. His caddy, Ronan Flood, will often urge him to resist hitting one last bucket of balls. “I’m like a scolded child,” says Harrington.

If this sounds like the sort of obsessive behavior to which the ordinary duffer can relate, that’s because Harrington is the patron saint of duffers. In his twenties, at an age when Tiger Woods was shattering records, Harrington was training to become an accountant on the assumption that professional golf was too difficult to crack. Between his first professional victory, in 1996, and his second four years later, he recorded nine runner-up finishes, and spent most of his early years on tour being chided for his plodding style and slow play. But Harrington has always had one great skill: he just keeps going. Now 37, he has emerged as one of the greatest golfers of his generation, winning three majors (the last two British Opens and the 2008 PGA Championship) and giving himself the opportunity on April 9 at the U.S. Masters to become only the third man in the modern era to win three majors in a row.

Sporting geniuses such as Tiger Woods have an intuitive, almost artistic feel for golf; Harrington belongs to a breed of amateur scientists who use an agonizing process of trial and error to master their craft. “Padraig is the hardest worker I’ve ever coached, and the most curious,” says Bob Torrance, Harrington’s 77-year-old swing guru. “[Former great Ben] Hogan was similar, both struggled early in their career. Both learned long and hard, and both became great.”

Harrington has learned to balance his obsessive focus on technical details with a less tangible discipline — sports psychology. Renowned golf psychologist Bob Rotella teaches Harrington how not to think, encouraging him to play “unconscious, out-of-his-mind golf.” Such clarity is muddled by technical tinkering on the practice tee, so Rotella places a limit on practice during big tournaments. It’s an abstention Harrington struggles to uphold. “I’m getting better but if I’m let loose I’ll just practice all day,” he says.

The fusion of technical acumen and mental calm has not only brought success, it has allowed Harrington to attain a seemingly impossible state in such a frustrating sport: contentment. His caddy often asks Harrington before he takes his club back whether he’s happy, to which he usually answers in the affirmative. When he’s frustrated, he might say “delirious.” (One of Harrington’s conversational tics is a habit of breaking down his answers as if analyzing a golf swing or commentating on a match. “Now I’m actually being smart when I say ‘delirious.’ I’m actually being facetious with that remark,” he says.)

Harrington’s recent success has come with an asterisk. Tiger Woods was absent with a knee injury during Harrington’s last two major wins, and many now question whether the Irish player’s workmanlike skill can challenge golf’s chosen one. Harrington carries no false hope. “When Tiger’s having a good week, there’s not much opportunity for anyone else,” he says. His mental coach has instructed him to focus on his own game, as there’s not much he or anyone else can learn from studying his monumentally talented rival. “It’s silly to pay attention to someone so gifted and expect to learn from [him],” Rotella says. “You can learn a lot more from someone like Harrington, who had to make himself great.” Harrington agrees, “I can’t play someone else’s game. But I can play Padraig Harrington’s game, and that’s just fine with me.” He may be a long shot, but hardworking Padraig Harrington may be just the sort of champion we need in these chastened times.

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