THERE’S BEEN A significant generational shift in golf over the last twelve months. A new cohort of players are beginning to change the face of the game as the sport enters a new, and exciting, era.
The influx of young talent, including the ‘big three’ of Jordan Spieth, Rory McIlroy and Jason Day, dominated the past season as the balance of power tilts.
The most striking aspect of the change of landscape has been the conviction and consistency of this new generation and the benchmark they’re now setting.
The fear factor once solely associated with Tiger Woods is no longer applicable to just one player – there are a host of stars who have the ability to blow the rest of the field away.
It couldn’t be any more competitive with a cursory glance of the year-end world rankings illustrating the depth of quality on tour.
Some of the game’s most venerable, and polished, stars have been forced to adjust their game to simply keep up as the bar continues to be raised. It is one of the challenges facing Pádraig Harrington as he prepares for his 20th season as a professional.
Even in golf, a career spanning over two decades is rare. It is a sport which facilitates such longevity but it’s not a given. Tiger Woods’ pitiful fall is enough evidence in that regard.
By Harrington’s own admission, if he had been in any other sport the curtain would have already fallen on his existence at the top yet remaining on the circuit isn’t enough for the 44-year-old. His appetite for success remains undiluted.
The fact he was back on the course a matter of days after undergoing surgery to rectify a knee complaint is enough to appreciate his steadfast quest for betterment.
His meticulous strength and conditioning work in the gym meant he was ‘ahead of the curve’ before going under the knife and his recovery time is subsequently shorter than normal.
It was important he came out of it right. The past nine weeks, the intervening period between the end and start of the wraparound seasons, is seen as the most important stretch of the year.
Time off is essential, but so are the hours spent in the gym and on the range preparing for the demands the new season will inevitably bring.
“I feel good about it,” Harrington tells The42. “I fully understand what I need to do to have a good year. I clearly need to putt better and I need to have much more of a go-to thought for the rest of the game.
“As well as that, I’ve been practising my wedge play and those three areas are the ones I’ve been focusing on because this is the most essential part to having a good year.
“You need a minimum of six weeks in order not to carry stress from one year to the next. I always take more than that, nine weeks is this year and if you don’t get those right, you lose most of the year and you’re playing catch up.”
Harrington delayed keyhole surgery to coincide with his traditional Christmas break. He thinks these things out. A cortisone injection tempered the pain and allowed him to complete the season.
It was a winning season, and that’s how it will be remembered, but ultimately a disappointing one. After ending his period in the doldrums with a nail-biting victory at the Honda Classic in March, Harrington was unable to build upon the early season promise.
He flirted with glory at the Open in July and it was a performance which offered renewed encouragement, as he rediscovered that mental edge which had eluded him during the slide down the world rankings.
“In terms of performances, it was one of the worst performances I’ve had bar the winning week and the Open,” he explains.
“I underperformed nearly every week last year, it was a tough grind, I didn’t put much together all year. So it was a strange year but the one encouraging thing was that when I got myself in contention I played better and felt better and it was easier when I was under pressure. When I was nervous it was easier.
“So that’s a nice sign that I still know what to do but it’s still hard getting me to that Sunday afternoon.”
Harrington led at St Andrews until he found the gorse to the right of the sixth at the Old Course. It ended his challenge after three birdies in five holes had propelled him to the top of the leaderboard.
He would go on to finish in a share for 20th but there were positive signs: signs of the old Harrington. That look in his eyes on the final day of a Major, the magic in his putter and the spring in his step.
That one shot on an innocuous par four derailed his bid for a third Claret Jug, yet it served as a revealing afternoon. His tame finish was ‘inconsequential’ but the week was far from it.
His well-documented fall from grace after winning the third of his Majors sparked accusations of an over complex approach. Certainly he is one of the game’s most complex characters and is consumed by its intricacies. He’s fascinated by the mechanics of the swing and obsessed about his.
But above all, he is a golf fanatic. He’s as intrigued by the psychological aspects as much as the physical. His assembled team, including mental coach Dr Bob Rotella and fitness consultant Dr Liam Hennessy, provide the expertise in the quest to stay competitive and remain focused.
“I’ve done a good job this year by getting rid of two things in my game,” he continues. “Over the last few years I’d lost confidence in reading the greens but that doesn’t even cross my mind now. And another thing is that I was definitely thinking too much between shots and I’ve certainly shut that down quite a bit.
“I have to give myself much more of a sustainable thought for the year.”
Harrington’s desire to represent Ireland at the Olympics, where golf is on the agenda for the first time, is no secret. His dream of going to Rio was rekindled with victory at the Honda, a win which ended his seven-year PGA Tour drought, but it remains an incredibly long-shot – as is regaining his place on the Ryder Cup team.
“They’re both incredibly long shots now at this stage,” he admits. “If I achieve one, I’ll probably achieve the other and that’s kind of the way it is but both are incredibly long shots. I have to have a quick start and have to back it up with some stellar play for the rest of the year.
“I am running out of time to make it in the Olympics. It would need to be one big year, two good wins or else a Major. It would have to be a big year.”
Harrington will look to hit the ground running when hostilities resume at the Hyundai Tournament of Champions from 7 January. It will be the first time he plays at the event in Hawaii, an indication of the purpose he enters 2016 with.
He starts the year in 142nd in the world and will spend the first chunk of the season in America where he will finish-up in Florida to defend his Honda Classic in late February.
By the time he returns home to Dublin, the path he goes down for the rest of the year will already have been determined. It’s a different one to the avenue he went down the early days of his career. Now, it’s a question of going forward, albeit in a slightly different direction.
“I’m just loving the idea that I can fight my way back from and to become a different player,” he continues. “At the end of the day, sport doesn’t allow you to keep going. There are so many mental motivations, if you achieve your career goals, it’s very hard to keep going after.
“For many, it’s one Major and you’ll find most guys struggle after they win their first major. For someone like me, I wanted to win Majors and I did that. For someone like Rory [McIlroy], I don’t know where he’s going to stop but at four majors he probably hasn’t achieved what he set out to do, at three I’ve overachieved.
“It’s hard to keep going after that, it really is your starting point, where you’re going to end up at. All sports is so much based on where the athlete considers or believes their standing is.
“If they believe they’re the best in the world, they will probably end up there. If they believe they’re not going to make it, they probably won’t. It’s just the way it is.”
Harrington is a believer. He’s always been confident in his own ability, even if he struggled to maintain the standards he set himself after adding a third Major to his cabinet.
With three in his possession, he’s achieved more than he set out to do. He admits the ‘innocence’ of his youth has been lost along the way and his approach now is to find an alternative motivation.
“I certainly hit my peak but I would like to think I can figure a way out and I believe I’m a sort of person who can work through these things but I’m not the person I was ten years ago in terms of my innocence and enthusiasm and thinking that it’s all ahead of you.
“I’m now trying to live up to something where as before it was going forward blindly. I set out to be a journeyman pro on tour but I kept my head down and kept going forward.
“I don’t think anyone would have picked me to win three majors when I turned pro but there you go. I’ve always been a motivated person who continues to love and work at this game and the motivation now is to be as good as I can be at 44 years of age.
“The only thing now that would change my CV would be another Major, and maybe an Olympics as that would be a big deal for me.
“But that’s not to say I don’t think I can win. I love this game. Everything about it fascinates me. I just need a different motivation, a different way of things because I’m a different person now.
“I’m not retiring. I will continue to play for as long as I can. If they wheel me out when I’m 80, I’ll still play golf.”
Players of his generation are gradually fading from prominence but there’s no doubt Harrington is determined to avoid being one of them.
His achievements over the last two decades have already rubber-stamped his stature as one of Ireland’s greatest sports people but you get an inkling that he’s not quite finished just yet.
