Padraig Harrington surprised the crowd with the quality he showed at the PGA Tour Champions event (on En-Joie Golf Course). Padraig shot a 66 during the first round. What is even more impressive is that Harrington still expects the best from himself.
“I don’t feel you’ve seen the best of me yet,” he said, as quoted by yahoo sports. “I like being out here. It’s a different sort of test. You’re sort of dealing with your own expectations every day.
You’re trying to figure out, well, look, I should be up here, I should be contending, I should be at the top of the leaderboard and how you manage that. It’s a different feeling than hoping. “The more I get better at that and more familiar with it hopefully, I know I’m working on the right things and you’re kind of incentivized to work on the right things when you know it could come down to just one shot on Sunday”.
Mental game
His goal is to work on the mental game. “Just my mental game, just really trying to get my mental game solid, routine solid. Physically I have quite an advantage out here, so it really is how good I think, how good I am on the greens,” he said. “And as I said, you know starting the tournament it’s on the line straightaway, so you’re incentivized to get your head in the game quickly”.
Harrington played with Clark and Langer, and he is satisfied with what he saw. “A rising tide lifts all ships, there’s no doubt about it. You want to see birdies, you want to see your playing partners holing putts.
You know, I think I holed a long one on 10 after Darren holed one. That sort of stuff, when you see somebody holing in front of you, it’s positive,” Harrington said. “There’s nothing like a positive affirmation of seeing it happen.
Yeah, it’s important to have momentum in your group at least all the way until the last nine holes; every man for himself at that stage”.
