No Tiger, no problem for Harrington

RAY McNULTY
Scripps Howard News Service
8/13/2008 3:50:22 PM

Turns out, no asterisk will be necessary.

Not for last month's British Open.

Not for last weekend's PGA Championship.

Not for Padraig Harrington, the likeable Irishman who won them both to make all kinds of golf history.

The fact that he won the year's final two major championships while Tiger Woods was recovering from knee surgery changes nothing.

Harrington won them, fair and square, by playing some wonderful golf in some horrible conditions. He won them by playing his best golf when it mattered most. He won them by playing the way Woods so often plays on Sunday, when the game's marquee tournaments are there for the taking, by hitting the big shots and making the pressure putts.

And based on what Harrington has shown us these past 13 months, winning three of the last six majors, it's no reach to say he would've won this summer's British Open and PGA Championship even if Woods were on the course.

Even a healthy Woods.

Contrary to what many peripheral golf fans might think, Woods doesn't win every major he enters. Since his historic run in 2000-2001, when he created the "Tiger Slam" by simultaneously holding all four Grand Slam titles but not in the same calendar year, Woods has won only eight of the past 29 major championships in which he has played.

That means 21 majors were won by someone else.

One of them was last year's British Open at Carnoustie, where Harrington beat everyone -- including Woods -- for his first major title.

So it's silly to say Woods would've beaten Harrington this year at Royal Birkdale, where the weather was utterly abysmal. Same goes for this year's PGA Championship at a rain-soaked Oakland Hills, where the tough course setup resembled that of a U.S. Open.

The holes were long. The fairways were tight. The rough was deep.

Both times and on both continents, Harrington was more than up to the challenge. He was downright Woodsian.

He shot a Tiger-like 32 on the back nine at wind-swept Royal Birkdale en route to a four-stroke victory in the British Open. Then, after surviving the first two rounds at Oakland Hills, he put together a Tiger-like weekend, shooting 66-66 to win by two strokes over Sergio Garcia and Ben Curtis.

And unlike Woods, maybe the greatest frontrunner in the history of sports, he came from behind to win.

"I have probably been the leading player in Europe for close to six years," Harrington told reporters after his PGA triumph lifted him to No. 3 in the world rankings, behind only Woods and No. 2 Phil Mickelson. "It is a big step now to move up and start competing on a different level."

Woods' level? We'll see.

Truth is, Harrington went winless in the 12 months between his British championships. His game, even having achieved these heights, is still a work in progress. But he admits: "I'm making more things happen on the golf course."

I'll say.

Not only did Harrington end Europe's eight-year drought in majors with his win at Carnoustie, but when he took the trophy at Royal Birkdale, he also became the first European since 1905-06 to win consecutive British Open championships.

On Sunday, he also became the first European since Tommy Armour in 1930 to win the PGA Championship.

He's the first European to win consecutive majors.

Then there's this: Harrington has now joined Woods, Mickelson, Ernie Els and Vijay Singh as the only active golfers to have won three majors. And across the past 25 years, Woods is the only other player to win three times in a six-major span.

So forget that asterisk.

Harrington would've won, anyway.


(Ray McNulty is sports columnist for Scripps Treasure Coast (Fla.) Newspapers, The Stuart News, Fort Pierce Tribune and Vero Beach Press Journal. Contact him at ray.mcnulty@scripps.com or on the Web at www.tcpalm.com.)