Wheelbarrow time at East Lake

Padraig Harrington reckons he has the guts to hole a putt worth a wheelbarrow full of cash - a whopping €7.7m FedexCup delivery.

But he admits that the thought of standing over what could turn out to be the richest single shot in golfing history is a little out of the ordinary.

If he wins the Tour Championship in Atlanta and Tiger Woods does not finish outright second, Harrington gets €920,000 for the tournament win plus the €6.8m FedExCup bonus money.

Even for Harri Putter, that’s a lot of green.

Harrington said: “It would be quite possible that if you had a putt to win, you could be caught in thinking about the money.

“If I have a putt to win the tournament and the FedExCup, it could be $11.3m (€7.7m) for me on the last. That's a lot of money.

“I could stand here and tell you, no, it won't affect me, I won't think about it at all ... but I'd be telling you lies.”

Every one of the 30 players who’s qualified to play at East Lake has a mathematical chance of winning the loot.

But Harrington knows that if he gets the chance, he has the bottle to do the business after draining pressure packed putts to win the 2007 Open and last year’s US PGA.

He said: “I think the putt to make double bogey on the last, the 72nd hole at the Open, that was pretty pressure-filled. I got right into the zone.

“Or the putt to win the PGA, again, I felt good over it.”

The only problem is that the money is becoming a distraction, even for a man who's earned €50m on and off the course since 1996.

He said two weeks ago that he’d like to see the FedExCup cash for real, joking: “We could take it in a wheelbarrow up to the clubhouse. Anything that falls out, it's the caddie's."

Now he admits that the mere thought of the cash is enough to send his head spinning.

He said: “Money doesn't have a real play on the players. It goes into a bank account and we don't see it, so it's not like it's real. But I do believe with the money that's on the line this week that it would have an effect on the 18th hole.”

In order to have a chance of winning the money on the 235-yard, par-three, Harrington must continue to produce the kind of form that has seen him turn his season around.

He’s had five top 10s in a row and was the only player to finish in the top 10 in the first three play-off events.

But another top-10 would not satisfy Harrington, who knows that a win would turn a car-crash season into a banner year.

He beamed: “You know, I'm pushing for a win. Top 10s are nice, but they don't really cut it.

“It was possible it was going to be one of those years you just have to write off. But the FedExCup has given me the opportunity to change that around.

“We're still going; it's still in the balance. As I said, if I can get that win, it would turn the year into a very successful one.”

Anyone in the top five in the rankings is guaranteed the biggest jackpot in golf if he wins the tournament.

But Harrington is relaxed and even found time to play a joke on Open champ Stewart Cink.

The Open champion left the Claret Jug in the locker room and Harrington couldn’t resist the temptation and "nicked" it back.

Harrington beamed: “He put his Open trophy down and I hid it on him. It's in my locker.”