Harrington hoping for easier test
Padraig Harrington is looking to turn some good play into scores in Connecticut this week. Pádraig Harrington will be hoping to turn some good play into birdies rather than just pars when he swaps the iron discipline of the US Open for the more forgiving test of TPC River Highlands for this week’s Travelers Championship.
The Dubliner finished joint 21st in the US Open at Merion despite struggling with his wedges and holing precious little on the greens.
While he insisted in his tour diary that he “putted nicely from short distance” at Merion, conveniently forgetting the nervy short putt he missed on Friday night to double bogey the 15th, there were plenty of good signs in his game that he hopes to turn into a good performance in Connecticut.
Last year, Harrington shot rounds of 69-67-65-69 to finish 11th in the Travelers, just four shots behind Australian Marc Leishman.
This week he’s up against 23 of the top 30 in the FedEx Cup standings including newly crowned US Open champion Justin Rose and Ryder Cup stars Hunter Mahan, Keegan Bradley, Webb Simpson and Lee Westwood, not to mention up and coming stars like Rickie Fowler, Kevin Streelman, Harris English, Chris Kirk and Michael Thompson.
A par 70 measuring 6844 yards, TPC River Highlands is actually shorter than Merion and Harrington hopes it will be “a slightly easier test” having struggled to score in Pennsylvannia.
“Looking back at my week my main problem was that I didn’t make enough birdies - I only had a grand total of six birdies all week. Considering the amount of short holes there were on the course that was a very poor return.”
His objective is to sharped up the wedge play that cost him in the US Open and hole more of those putts in the 10-20 ft range.
“I hit a lot of good shots during the week and most importantly my short game is coming back to where it used to be, but the area that I was most disappointed with was my wedge play which I lost during the practice days and as a result lost a bit of confidence in them for the week.
“I was always fearing catching them heavy. Probably the most important part of your game at a major is your wedge play so to be struggling with this area was very disappointing.”
While Harrington puts the finishing touches to his Irish Open preparations in the US, four Irishmen are in action at the BMW International Open in Munich.
Peter Lawrie, Shane Lowry and David Higgins are joined at Golfclub München Eichenried by Ballyclare’s Gareth Maybin with the leading contenders the likes of Sergio Garcia, Ernie Els, Dustin Johnson, Mattero Manassero, Henrik Stenson and home hopes Martin Kaymer and Marcel Siem.