Padraig Harrington faces ballot box battle with Tiger Woods for PGA Tour’s Player of the Year award. But even if he loses a vote amongst his fellow tour stars, the reigning Open and US PGA champion will finish the season with more silverware than ever.

 The European Tour slipped up yesterday when it revealed in publicity for its Yearbook that Harrington has won the European Tour Player of the Year and Shot of the Year awards, which were not due to be announced until next month.

But he really wants to become the first European to win the Jack Nicklaus Trophy awarded to the PGA Tour’s Player of Year after a vote by the US tour players. And while three-time tour winner Kenny Perry, FedEx Cup champion Vijay Singh and poster boy Camilo Villegas have also been included on the ballot, his biggest rival is world No 1 Woods.

Harrington is regarded as the favourite to win the most prestigious season-ending award in golf after becoming only the seventh player since 1960 to win two Majors in a row.

But it remains to be seen if he has done enough in the eyes on the players to deny Woods his 10th Jack Nicklaus Trophy win since 1997.

Apart from February’s Dubai Desert Classic, Woods won four times in six starts in the US, including the US Open in a playoff, before season-ending knee surgery.

Along with winning the US Open, the world No 1 was second in the Masters and the only other tournament he failed to win was the CA Championship at Doral, where he tied for fifth.

Apart from that he won the Buick Invitational by eight shots, the Accenture Match Play Championship by a record 8 and 7 and the Arnold Palmer Invitational with a 25-foot birdie on the final hole.

He sat out the entire month of May after knee surgery, then missed the final three months of the season because of another operation but still finished second on the money list.

Harrington had those two Majors wins and four top 10s but missed three cuts, failed to qualify for the Tour Championship and finished eighth on the money list.

Two time Major winner Johnny Miller reckons Harrington deserves the award, explaining: "A vote for Tiger is essentially saying that had there been no knee injury, he would have won one of the majors that Padraig did. You can’t give him credit for winning the majors he didn’t play."

The result of the ballot for the award will be announced in mid-December.

Harrington v Woods - How they compared in 2008

TIGER WOODS PGA TOUR 2008

1. 1/27/08 Buick Invitational 1st 67 65 66 71 -- 269 -19 $936,000.00
2. 2/24/08 World Golf Championships-Accenture Match Play Ch’ship 1st $1,350,000.00
3. 3/16/08 Arnold Palmer Invitational presented by MasterCard 1st 70 68 66 66 -- 270 -10 $1,044,000.00
4. 3/23/08 World Golf Championships-CA Championship 5th 67 66 72 68 -- 273 -15 $285,000.00
5. 4/13/08 Masters Tournament 2nd 72 71 68 72 -- 283 -5 $810,000.00
6. 6/15/08 U.S. Open Championship P1 72 68 70 73 -- 283 -1 $1,350,000.00

Events 6 First 4 2nd 1 3rd 0 Top 10 6 Top 25s 6 Made cut 6 Money $5,775,000

 

PADRAIG HARRINGTON PGA TOUR 2008

1. 2/10/08 AT&T Pebble Beach National Pro-Am T14 72 70 70 72 -- 284 -4 $87,360.00
2. 2/17/08 Northern Trust Open T3 69 69 71 68 -- 277 -7 $359,600.00
3. 2/24/08 World Golf Championships-Accenture Match Play Cha’ship T17 $90,000.00
4. 3/30/08 Zurich Classic of New Orleans T4 71 70 68 69 -- 278 -10 $256,266.67
5. 4/06/08 Shell Houston Open T26 71 73 71 68 -- 283 -5 $38,920.00
6. 4/13/08 Masters Tournament T5 74 71 69 72 -- 286 -2 $273,750.00
7. 5/11/08 THE PLAYERS Championship CUT 72 78 -- -- -- 150 +6 --
8. 6/08/08 Stanford St. Jude Championship T4 71 72 66 68 -- 277 -3 $236,250.00
9. 6/15/08 U.S. Open Championship T36 78 67 77 71 -- 293 +9 $35,709.00
10. 7/20/08 British Open Championship 1st 74 68 72 69 -- 283 +3 $1,498,875.00
11. 8/03/08 World Golf Championships-Bridgestone Invitational T20 69 75 68 67 -- 279 -1 $71,000.00
12. 8/10/08 PGA Championship 1st 71 74 66 66 -- 277 -3 $1,350,000.00
13. 8/24/08 The Barclays CUT 72 73 -- -- -- 145 +3 --
14. 9/01/08 Deutsche Bank Championship CUT 75 65 -- -- -- 140 -2 --
15. 9/07/08 BMW Championship T55 69 71 72 71 -- 283 +3 $15,820.0