Aug 20, 2008 - 12:33 AM
0 shoutsBy Simon Lewis PA SportsTicker Contributing Writer
PARAMUS, New Jersey (Ticker) - Newly-crowned PGA champion Padraig Harrington wants to add FedEx Cup success to his double major-winning season.
Harrington, refreshed from a week-long vacation in North Carolina following his two-stroke victory over Sergio Garcia and Ben Curtis at Oakland, will return to action at Ridgewood Country Club on Thursday.
The Irishman tees off in the Barclays, the first of four events in the PGA Tour's lucrative season-ending FedEx Cup playoffs.
Only the top 144 players in the FedEx Cup standings with points accumulated from the regular season are eligible, and with world number one Tiger Woods among those unable to enter due to injury and other obligations, the Barclays is left with a 136-man field.
The field is reduced after each event according to the latest standings, leaving a final field of 30 for the final event, The Tour Championship, in the last week of September.
Harrington said the format had motivated him enough to interrupt his well-earned rest following back-to-back major wins in the last five weeks at the British Open and PGA.
"It was an interesting week," Harrington said of his holiday. "I sat by the pool for most of it and come Sunday I was thinking I would like to sit there for another week.
"But the FedEx Cup is what is attracting me out here again this week and the idea of it is to get players out to compete at this time of year. After two majors you think, 'Well, I could do with a rest', but there's other things to play for so that's why I'm here this week."
On his way to victory at Oakland Hills, Harrington had admitted he had been mentally fatigued and was suffering a hangover from his successful British Open defense at Royal Birkdale three weeks prior to that. Yet he said this time he was as confident as he could be he would be ready to go on Thursday.
"I'm certainly putting the effort in this week," he said. "I did make sure I rested last week and I've got a little bit of experience now from winning these majors, so I knew what to do afterwards.
"I believe I will be ready, but I'm never truly able to tell until I'm into the tournament and I can see how I play."
Harrington said he was also mindful of his slow recovery from his first major victory at the 2007 British Open at Carnoustie.
"I remember last year I did struggle in the first couple of the FedEx Cup tournaments and I did end up having to pull out of a tournament because I was fatigued," he said. "This time round I feel better and stronger. I'm motivated, there's lots to play for."
Harrington is a former champion in this week's event, winning the Barclays Classic by a stroke over Jim Furyk in 2005 when it was played at Westchester Country Club in New York.
This year's tournament has moved from Westchester for the first time in its 41-year history, 35 miles away, across the Hudson River to New Jersey's Ridgewood Country Club but Harrington said he liked what he saw at the new venue and its 7,319-yard, par-71 course, a composite layout from the 27 holes designed there by AG Tillinghast in 1929.
"I'm looking forward to playing it. The Barclays is on a very nice golf course," Harrington said. "I played 12 holes yesterday, it's a good, old-style golf course and it will be an interesting week. There'll be some good scoring, some difficult, tricky holes out there as well, what you kind of expect from a Tillinghast course, and it looks like it will be a good tournament."
Harrington goes in the FedEx Cup playoffs in fourth place in the standings, which were reset after last week's Wyndham Championship.
With Woods leading the points race but not in the field, Harrington finds himself behind just Kenny Perry and Phil Mickelson, but he said the competition was wide open with four events to play.
"Anybody, realistically, in the top 10, I suppose, if they get a win in this tournament and then follow it up with some good performances they can win the FedEx Cup," he said. "Anybody outside, it might take two wins, so there's a lot to play for and I'm ready to go."
