Padraig Harrington returns to Muirfield next week and venue for this year’s British Open on a course that continues to be the ‘gold standard’ of performance for the triple Major Champion.
Eleven years ago, Harrington braved the now infamous Saturday afternoon storm to head into the final round six shots behind eventual champion and now good friend, Ernie Els.
But after a thrilling 67 Harrington was left ‘devastated’ to have missed the four-man play-off by a single shot.
Harrington’s effort was the second time in six years he had finished fifth in golf’s oldest major but it was the first time in his career Harrington genuinely believed he had a chance of attaining major championship glory.
Padraig Harrington says the 2002 Open was his ‘gold standard’.
“The 2002 Open at Muirfield was the gold standard for me because for 72 holes, and except for the one hour storm, I hit just about every golf shot I wanted,” he said.
“For a long number of years afterwards, I don’t know if it curtailed my ability to go forward, because I held that week up as the gold standard, and yet maybe even today I still hold it up as the gold standard or how I would like to play golf.
“So certainly to this day, my memory of Muirfield is I’ve never played as well as I did there, tee-to-green.
“But then Muirfield back in ’02 was a very, very odd event for me.
“Up to the last, I thought I needed to make birdie to give myself any chance of getting into any play-off.
“Ernie was maybe an hour behind me on the course and he dropped a few shots coming in so I was trying to force myself to make a birdie but I made a bogey and missed a playoff by the shot.
“I was devastated and I would have been much happier to lose by three shots than one.”
This next will mark Harrington’s 17th British Open appearance and his 60th Major Championship.
And now at 41 years of age, Harrington has not ruled out becoming the third straight over-40s player to be presented with the famed Claret Jug.
“If I won a Major next week, and while I did enjoy my last three and celebrate my last three, I will certainly celebrate a fourth,” he smiled.
That’s my one piece of advice whenever I see someone win a Major, and I do remind them, this isn’t going to happen every week.
“You have to make the most of when it happens and enjoy it. I did enjoy mine, no doubt about it. They don’t happen as often as you think they will happen, even in a great career.
“If you look at my contemporaries, Tiger (Woods) has actually won 14, and then you’ve got Ernie (Els) and Phil (Mickelson) who have won four, but you really don’t win that many Majors. That’s the way of the world.
“I recall I played a practice round with (Nick) Faldo at Augusta one year, and this would have been ’99, 2000, actually it was.
“He’s got his sixth Major and he’s working so hard on the golf course and I kind of asked him — and he’s just trying to win one more.
“So I hope I’m not that person so that I can enjoy the three I’ve won as much as I’m trying to win as many more as I can.
“You can say winning three majors is pretty good and let’s enjoy that but the key with me is, I’ll never not be trying.
“There’s very few guys who win a major get past one. Three is a good haul and can be seen by the fact that there’s only three guys who are playing golf at the moment who have won more than three.
“And it took some of them, 20 years. Ernie, it took 20 years to win his four and that still gives me great confidence.”
