Stripped down, these were the numbers: 71st hole of the 2008 Open, par five, two-shot lead, 272 yards to the pin. Trouble? To the right of the green. And wide on the left. And in front. Wind? Blowing hard, left to right. Philip Parkin was at the scene to file a site report for the BBC, trying not to be judgemental; struggling. “He’s being aggressive again,” he said, as Harrington took a five wood in his hands. “He’ll have to start this almost over the crowds on the left…”
“Perhaps he doesn’t know he’s two shots ahead,” said Ken Brown in the commentary booth, offering ignorance in Harrington’s defence. “This is a bit of a risk, don’t you think?”
“I would have thought so yes,” said Peter Alliss, chief justice, leaning towards a verdict of diminished responsibility. “He’s aiming into the grandstand virtually on the left…”
In Harrington’s mind were blue-sky thoughts. He was in control: of his swing, of his emotions, of his reason. When he was in contention Harrington didn’t look at leaderboards but, for the first time in the final round, he sensed that he needed to know. He was aware that Greg Norman, his playing partner, was three behind and he thought that might be the margin of his lead. Ronan Flood, Harrington’s caddie, had an eye on the leaderboard for both of them: he knew that Ian Poulter was in the clubhouse, only two behind. He gave Harrington the number but not the name.
Yet Norman was the player on his mind. He had sent his drive 30 yards beyond Harrington, attacking. On the final day of The Open Norman was the romantic lead: 53 years of age, striding out against the tide of time.
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“You could be caught up with the sentimentality of it. You know, ‘It could be Greg Norman’s great swansong,’” Harrington says now. “The crowds, the media were all saying ‘This is some story.’ I was wary of that. I was very worried about Greg making an eagle and all of that stuff happening. I was thinking if I hit a good second shot it’s in my hands. I can end the tournament now by making a birdie, not an eagle. I was only trying to make a birdie. Myself and Ronan talked through the options... “
Flood stepped away with the bag and then leaned back with a final swing thought.
“It’s a smooth one,” he said.
“Yeah,” said the champion.
For the first half of the week the question was if Harrington would be fit to mount any defence of his title. On the Saturday before The Open he injured his wrist swinging a driver into an impact bag, a drill designed to strengthen his wrists. He attempted a practice round on Wednesday morning and walked off after two shots. His Thursday tee time was 7:58. Would he play? He would go to the practice range in the morning, he said, and decide. That evening his odds drifted to 66-1; no chance, the bookies said.
Typically, Harrington saw the good in it: being injured allowed him to discharge his duties of being defending champion without “being stressed” about it; he was unburdened of any expectations, his or others; and he was rested.
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“I was the freshest guy on the golf course on Thursday morning and I was still the freshest guy by Sunday. “The turning point was I hit it in the rubbish on six and my ball was sitting in a patch of briars and grass. I needed to hit it 100 yards in the air to carry a bunker. I had to go after it and I had to hit it. When I hit that shot and I didn’t hurt my wrist I knew I was OK. It was like a dark cloud had lifted off me. Everybody else was getting lashed with wind and rain and if you saw me I was bouncing down the fairway.”
Harrington scrambled for a four-over par opening round and then the weather calmed in the afternoon. He doesn’t watch golf on television during a tournament but in his rented house his family were glued to it. Out of the corner of his eye he saw Adam Scott reach the par-five 15th in two. “I hit three woods to that green in the morning. He was getting there in two. How I stopped myself from running in and kicking the TV…”
But the challenging weather returned. That suited Harrington: he had the game for it and the head for it. The scoring was erratic, the leaderboard was compressed. By Saturday, he was in the hunt. And still, stuff happens. Out of the blue he double-bogeyed the par-three 12th, the third easiest hole on the course according to the members’ scorecard. As he walked to the next tee a consoling voice erupted from the gallery.
“I don’t think my head was down because that’s not… but it must have looked like my head was down. He looked at me and with a Liverpudlian accent he said, ‘Cheer up mate, I’m a plumber and I’ve got to go to work on Monday.’”
In his victory speech on Sunday Harrington mentioned the exchange and when the formalities were completed he was approached by Tony Stephenson from nearby Ainsdale, full-time plumber, part-time pop psychologist. “I just wanted to shake your hand,” he said, “and tell you that I fibbed: I’m not back to work until Tuesday.”
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Harrington teed it up in the final group on Sunday for the first time in a major. How many times had Norman done it? Perhaps more often than he cared to remember. The greatest cruelties that golf had visited upon him had come in the final round of majors. Harrington barely knew him but they had played together in an exhibition match six years earlier at the opening of Doonbeg in county Clare, a course that Norman had designed and President Donald Trump now owns.
“He literally hadn’t played any competitive golf around that time and I remember thinking, ‘Wow, this guy can really play.’ He beat me that day. I played well and he beat me…I was surprised how gracious Greg Norman was [in Birkdale], how nice he was to play with. He was harder to play against in the exhibition match. Why? I don’t know. That shocked me. I expected, you know…there was good interaction all day and that makes a difference. You can be paired with guys on Sunday that you don’t get on with and the two of you can drag each other down. I just envisaged a tougher character.”
On the 17th tee Harrington reached for his Wilson five wood, his favourite club. “That was a go-to club for me at the time – especially off the tee under pressure. I used to aim down the right and hit a pull draw with it.” In cold blood Harrington would hit it about 250 yards; on that tee shot it covered 306 yards. A year earlier at Carnoustie Harrington had thrashed the 18th and stumbled into a playoff. This time? He seized the championship.
“At the time I didn’t realise how big a shot it was because I was feeling good.” he says. “When you’re feeling good that’s what you do: press.”
Alliss was still dwelling on the risks when Harrington pulled the trigger: his ball crested a bank just short of the green and came to rest two feet from the pin.
“There was no danger,” said Alliss. “That’s a ripper.”
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“What do we know?” said Wayne Grady.
A couple of months ago Harrington returned to Royal Birkdale for the first time since 2008 and re-visited the spot on the 17th fairway from which he struck his eternal five wood. Well? “Looking at it, in the cold light of day, I was thinking, ‘Whoa, if I had a two-shot lead now I think I’d lay up.’”
He was right first time.
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