There is no golf journalist who gets more excited being present at a tournament than the Irish Independent’s Karl MacGinty.
While it’s difficult for Karl to be at every tournament, you can always be assured of some lively questions and stories when Karl is in attendance in the media centres of the European and PGA Tour’s.
Imagine then Karl’s surprise when he’s sitting at home in winter-locked Dublin, and no doubt still in his pyjamas, watching live coverage of Padraig Harrington’s pre-AT & T Pebble Beach Pro-Am.
Padraig Harrington would be wise not to mess with the Irish Independent's Karl MacGinty.
In the course of the triple Major winning Irishman’s some 8,500 word chat with the press, he was asked about an incident that took place early on Monday morning at Abu Dhabi Airport and shortly after the Abu Dhabi HSBC Championship.
On board the Etihad Airlines plane specially decked out in Manchester City Football Club logo and colours was Harrington and Karl.
However the dense fog that engulfed the airport early that Monday morning led to the Dublin-bound flight taxiing off the runway and supposedly puncturing a tyre in wiping out a few landing lights.
The incident forced the shutdown of the airport and delaying the travel plans of not only the Irish duo but thousands.
Harrington was quizzed about the incident on the eve of the Pebble Beach event and his response in bringing Karl into the picture is priceless.
Hereunder is Harrington’s response.
Q. Can you tell us about the little scare or big scare, whatever, leaving Abu Dhabi?
PADRAIG HARRINGTON: The one I didn’t know about? That’s Karl McGinty reporting. He was actually on the plane and I blame him because you should never travel with Karl McGinty. You know something is going to go wrong if you travel with Karl McGinty. No, he was on the plane.
No, look, we didn’t know anything happened. It was a very foggy night. They aborted takeoff. We just went back to the lounge, and it was only the next day they said there was some damage to the runway. We assumed that there was a puncture to one of the tires. It was only the next day that one of the‑‑ somebody that‑‑ they weren’t exactly telling people, but somebody who recognized me decided to tell me the story that they’d taken out a few lights on the runway, so obviously it had somehow veered.
The interesting side of the story, it was the Manchester city football plane with their colors and their name down the side. I was sitting with Blue Moon Rising which probably doesn’t mean too much to you, but the poster of Blue Moon Rising was behind my head, so I don’t know if they’ll ever want to be back on that particular plane again.
They’ve been great since. They’ve been very good about it. It really wasn’t as bad an experience as it’s turned out.
Q. You blame Karl?
PADRAIG HARRINGTON: Yeah, I blame Karl. You travel with Karl McGinty, something is going to go wrong. Maybe he should be banned. There’s always excitement in Karl’s life. Isn’t it like that Chinese curse: May your life be interesting.
