You looking for a good time? Catch every swing you can that Padraig Harrington makes this week at Royal Troon, where the 52-year-old golfer will be looking to win his third British Open. OK, OK, not too likely, but not totally nutso. His golf is still excellent.
Then, to keep this party going, check him out next week at Carnoustie, when the new World Golf Hall of Fame inductee will be looking to win his first British Senior Open. Padraig Harrington is huge fun to watch.
This guy is all in on every practice swing, every swing swing, every word out of his mouth. He’s as original as anybody playing this game today. He’s also the fifth victim in GOLF.com’s original series called . . . GOLF Originals. David Feherty in March, Tom Doak in April, Mike Whan in May, Brandel Chamblee in June, and here’s Paddy.
You can watch him free, here and now, on this page. Is this a great time to be alive, or what?
You want to hear about how to hit a hybrid out of the rough? We got Paddy on that. Or what went wrong with Rory on that 30-inch putt on 70th hole of the U.S. Open? Paddy weighs in. Or what it was like to play with Greg Norman in the last twosome, final day, in the 2008 British Open? Or what it’s like to play in a pro-am with Harrington as your pro?
Hint: Harrington likes playing in pro-ams, but if you’re going to play with him, you better be able to handle the truth. At a senior event last month, in Endicott, N.Y., near Binghamton, Harrington played with an amateur who described his experience playing high school baseball but showed no instinct or knack for golf at all. Harrington was baffled.
“Yalook incredibly unathletic,” he said.
Pro instructed am to make a horizontal baseball swing with a golf club. (That’s Bill Murray’s go-to pre-shot move.) The fella stepped right into an imaginary pitch. Harrington had the guy make that same swing at a golf ball at his feet. It was instantly a hundred times better.
“OK!” Harrington said. “Brilliant!”
He prods and he gives. It’s all in good fun, every last bit of it.
Harrington notes, in this 15-minute mini-doc that is an instructional video by happy accident, that the golf swing basically is the baseball swing, and in both you’re swinging a stick at a ball. Harrington’s father was a police officer who could play any sport. Harrington is the youngest of five boys. If only his unpretentiousness were contagious. Golf needs more Padraig Harringtons. But there’s only one, and we got him here.
At Troon, his Thursday-Friday tee times are late/early. Phil Mickelson is in the threesome in front of him and Darren Clarke is in front of Mickelson. Three Open winners in their 50s, all in a row. Clarke won the 2022 Senior Open. Mickelson hasn’t played in one. Harrington wouldn’t miss it. He loves playing tournament golf. He loves talking about the swing. He loves teaching the game, by which he means helping you realize that, to some significant degree, you have to figure it out for yourself. There will be future major winners who have unlocked some of the mysteries of the game for themselves, as Clarke and Harrington and Mickelson have done. But not all that many. It’s at the root of Harrington’s immense appeal. Add that to this: When he was 20, the namesake son of the Garda officer and boxer figured he’d become an accountant.
