Putting ‘heebie-jeebies’ forced Harrington to talk to Langer
Pádraig Harrington has admitted that wife, Caroline forced him “under threat” to talk to Bernhard Langer about his putting problems. “I had been putting very badly,” the three-time major winner revealed on Setanta Sports’ iTalkSport yesterday. “So badly, it was very close to the heebie-jeebies on the greens. So my wife actually made me, under threat, talk to Bernhard. He’s the closest in personality to the way I play golf. And he obviously went through his issues.”
Harrington feels that the chat may prove a turning point for him ahead of the remaining three majors this year.
“I think I found something that really helped me, in much more of a conscious way than necessarily getting everything right. If you watch when I’m in the zone before, my eyes are bulging out of my head and there’s a massive amount of energy in it. There was nowhere near the energy at the Masters. I was just comfortable in what I was doing.
“Afterwards I looked at it. It’s what happens when you’re leading tournaments, you’re under pressure, things are more important. In some ways, if you extrapolated this, you might call it a bit of a choke. I tried harder on reading those putts... I just got a little bit cautious on the lines, unfortunately. I just can’t wait to get to my next tournament to see if that’s it.”
On compatriot Rory McIlroy, Harrington admitted that the US Open champion is nowhere near as obsessive about the game as he is. “I have to make a big effort to get away from the game. He has a very nice balance. I had to play two tournaments before I was competitive for the third tournament. On the one hand, I was trying to get competitive but on the other, I was tiring myself out. He has the ability to play much less and still be focused and competitive.
“If I was giving him any advice, he shouldn’t feel like he has to win a major every year to get to whatever record he’s seeking. It doesn’t happen like that. It comes in little spurts like I got three in two years.”
© This appeared in the printed version of the Irish Examiner Monday, April 30, 2012
