Paddy's Thoughts On Royal Liverpool
Hot off THE OPEN CHAMPIONSHIP NEWS PRESS
Harrington predicts a mental challenge
18-Jul-2006 10:53 (BST)
"Probably the most complicated golf course you'll play off the tee," was Padraig Harrington's candid assessment of Royal Liverpool today.
The challenges presented by a fast, bouncing course allied to variable wind conditions and strategically placed bunkers means that players will be approaching the same hole in very different ways.
"It certainly requires a lot of thinking, and that will be good for the tournament... It will lead to a lot of variety, a lot of decision making, which obviously adds to the interest in golf."
And luck as always will play its part, although Harrington contends that it's less the good and the bad bounces, but more how a player deals with the rough and the smooth that will determine how he'll fare.
"I think that's where I would hope to gain on the other players, would be on (my) ability to handle some bad breaks and adjust... I've been brought up with links golf and I've seen it happen before, so I can certainly have some experience of dealing with some bad breaks and some good breaks out there."
The Irish have not had much luck at The Open Championship but if the Dubliner is looking for good omens, then the only Irishman to win The Open, Fred Daly in 1947, did so here at Hoylake.
And the 34-year-old, who missed last year's Open Championship due to the death of his father, knows that the pressure is on for him to capture that elusive first major, and what better one to win than the one he grew up watching.
"It's the one I'm familiar with. It's the one as a kid I would have dreamed of winning. The three majors in the States are far away; when you're a kid they're not as tangible as The Open. You sit and watch it for four days...so when you do come and play as a player, it does add something special to it, without a doubt."
Padraig has played himself into some good form recently, finishing in a tie for fifth at the US Open and following that up with a second place at the Booz Allen Classic. And the player ranked 18th in the world also has an edge over the majority of the field in that he's actually played this course in competition, albeit as an amateur.
Whether all of that is enough remains conjecture. What's fact is that there would be few more popular winners among the public and players alike.