Without a tour win for over two years - his last was the US PGA Championship in August 2008 - the Dubliner said: "I've been working away at my game and I'm using France very much to get ready for the match.

"Hopefully by the end it will not be a case of going to Celtic Manor looking to find something - it's going there and playing with what you've got."

Swede Peter Hanson is the only other member of the European side competing at Golf de Joyenval in what for the first two days is a pro-am.

Harrington, who has his brother Fergal as his partner, accepts there will be pressure on him in Wales, especially as he did not win a single game in either the 2006 win or the 2008 defeat.

But the 39-year-old says that careers are all about handling pressure and proving yourself.

"It will have happened more regularly than you think," he commented.

"I think it's a constant battle every golfer has. There's no doubt after 2007 (when he won the Open for the first time) every time I teed it up in a major I was trying to prove myself big time.

"It's a strange thing no matter how much success you have. I remember the first time I got to 14 in the world I had an awful time trying to prove it to myself.

"The same happened when I got to eight in the world, six, three. You get there and you kind of step back from it.

"It's only when you go there for a second time that you become comfortable with it.

"The only professional golfer I look at who seems comfortable in his own skin is Miguel Angel Jimenez.

"No matter what you see on the outside we all have these issues of trying to justify where we are.

"Unfortunately we all have our own insecurities and we're constantly trying to prove ourselves."