Harrington: Major win gives me Match Play trouble
Padraig Harrington has admitted that turning himself into a Major winner may have diminished his chances of winning the HSBC World Match Play Championship this weekend. The Irishman goes into the tournament as the reigning Open champion.
But Harrington believes the consistency he had to introduce into his game to triumph at Carnoustie back in July is not ideal for the head-to-head knock-out nature of match play.
Harrington, who plays in the first round against Anders Hansen on Thursday, said: "The way I've progressed with my game as a professional, I've got more consistent, more steady, all of the things that I wasn't as a match player.
"And it's kind of knocked the edge off my match play a bit. Certainly the last few times I played match play, I've struggled to raise my game.
"I've played steady golf and I've played nice golf, but when it's been put up to me a couple of times, I've actually just not had anything in the tank.
"It's easy to see even in my stroke play golf. When I first came on Tour, I shot a bigger disparity between my scores.
"I had more 65s, 64s or whatever, and more 75s. Now, you know everything is being hit between 68 and 74. It's a tighter dispersion, which it's good and that's what I've worked towards, but it's not necessarily the best thing if you're a couple down in match play.
"You need to have that ability to get erratic and raise your game and go on a run.
"So I'm looking forward to this week to see what it's like again, because as I said, the last couple of times, I didn't have that edge that I used to have."
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