Padraig Harrington looks on during the first round of the US Senior Open on Thursday.
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A few weeks ago, on Monday night of US Open week at Pinehurst, Padraig Harrington was inducted into the Golf Hall of Fame. His three heroics and a host of world championships and a career in the spotlight have been recognized on golf’s finest stage.
Inducted next to him that night was Sandra Palmer, the 81-year-old champion of the LPGA Tour who won two majors and 19 LPGA events, but whose career in this game is not over. Palmer continues to teach the game (and sometimes even work in the pro shop!) at Shadow Hills Golf Club in Palm Desert, Calif. He walked out onto the stage with a very wide smile and his hands held high.
It was fitting that Palmer and Harrington were paired together, as both seemed to fall deeply in love with the game as the years went by. They felt like kindred spirits that night, lighting up the room with their energy and passion for the game. We all wondered, how do they keep doing it?
Naturally, two weeks later – at the US Senior Open on Wednesday – Harrington was asked about his Palmer-esque future. Given his series of YouTube tips and endless swings, has Harrington ever given much thought to a career in coaching? His answer was long and layered, as Harrington always is, but in short he wants no part of it. At least not at a high level.
Why? He cited the “weirdly stupid” fact of the 10-foot putt.
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“One of the interesting things about my job – I see it in other people – and I see it when they’re wrong,” Harrington began, “is that I’m more likely to be bold – if you give me a 10-footer this week, I’m more likely to close it this week than I would be if I was playing in a PGA Tour event.
“It’s kind of silly, but it is, because here, that 10-foot player on Thursday or Friday, I hope I’m not looking over my shoulder at the cut line at that time, and when I go up to the US PGA. [Championship] In the last few weeks, every 10 footer is like do or die because, if I miss, I will miss the cut. “
In other words, the competition is too good for Harrington to leave the PGA Tour right now. At his best, he can swing around, as he did in the air at the Scottish Open last summer. But psychologically, the weight of 10 footers becomes greater if your game is not performing at the highest level – as it has for him at various peaks of his career. You get uncomfortable, which is a bad feeling for any professional at any age.
“It’s amazing how aptitude and comfort zone and when you believe that standing in a place can help you do well, and it has nothing to do with the physical side,” he continued. It’s just your beliefs. The Champions Tour proved that to me. I always knew that, but it shows even more.
“As I can think of many players. I remember when DJ was in his prime. He was hitting those 10- and 12-foot putts all the time for birdies, and the reason is, if he missed one, he knew he was going to have a 12-footer coming up next for birdie. So it’s not too difficult to bogey the first hole, and if he bogeyed this hole he knew he made another birdie.”
Harrington is wrong. Pro golf at the highest level is simply a combination of averages. Whose average is the best, allowing them to go higher and higher when the putts start to drop? Back in the late 2010s, it was Dustin Johnson. DJ’s average gave him all kinds of birdie looks from 10 to 15 feet, and players, like Harrington, who didn’t to hear mentally as they were at Johnson’s level they simply did not gain nearly as much as many of those who looked like birds. The pressure to make a 12-footer in front of you isn’t important when you know you’ll have three or four similar chances that day. But if your average is, in that particular week, you’ll only have two 12 feet each day, you feel like be entry to stay competitive.
To Harrington, that sounds strangely silly, and rightly so. Because the percentage of making this 12-footer is about 30% on the PGA Tour. You will miss more than you will. So he approaches those putts with Angst of feeling them the need entering is psychologically abusive and makes it difficult to train elite professionals. But it manifests itself in 10-footers while playing on the tee, 10-footers vs. birdie, 10-footers in the downhill vs. steep – the list goes on. That’s why Harrington, who is the closest player to the younger generation for swing advice, often pushes them in the short game, or just in their mental path.
“It’s amazing that we have these 18 months, two years when we get to a certain point,” Harrington said. “Good things happen, and because they happen, they actually happen. So the psychology of the game is of great interest. If I went into coaching, I would be a psychologist, not a golf coach. Is that an easy answer? I left a reply here. I’m really joking.”
No, it was not an easy answer. But sometimes the best answers are not so simple. The good news is that Harrington it does he enjoys coaching rookies, so there could be a future for him like Palmer’s there. But if he feels he can no longer play himself. As he said Wednesday, “If I can play when I’m 67 years old, I can see myself trying to play.”
That still looks pretty good, too. On Thursday, at age 52, Harrington opened his US Senior Open with a 4-under 66.
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