Back in October at the Dunhill Links Championship, Padraig Harrington let the golf scribblers in on a little secret.
"I don't normally tell you my goals," he whispered. "But my aim is top 15 in the world by 2016 for the Olympics; I'd love to be an Olympic athlete." Given that the Irishman was languishing in 324th place on the world rankings at the time of his bold declaration, it sounded as daunting a task as scaling Mount Olympus in a pair of moccasins. Five months down the line, Harrington has clambered out of the foothills and is on a rapid ascent. His play-off victory in the Honda Classic, his first PGA Tour triumph since 2008 and one that propelled him into 82nd place on the global order, proved that there is plenty of life in the old Pod yet. At 43, Harrington, who won two Opens and a US PGA title during a shimmering, 13-month purple patch in 2007 and 2008, bucked the recent trend that has led to nerveless, swaggering youngsters taking over the game. It doesn't get any easier mind you, but in these times of fearsome strength in depth on the global stage, the uplifting re-birth of Harrington was an illustration of that the well-worn phrase, form is temporary but class is permanent.
"The standard keeps going up and I sometimes describe it as a 100 metre dash," said Harrington. "Everybody lines up at the line and they all just sprint off. If you're not four under after nine holes, you're feeling like, 'oh my God, how am I going to make it up here?' It's hard to become a household name. You can play well for six weeks or three months but to consistently win tournaments and contend over here is incredibly difficult. It's a big, big pond out here with a lot of talent in it."
Swimming in this pond is Scotsman, Russell Knox, and the Inverness exile continues to paddle along very nicely. His share of third place in the Honda Classic, a title he lost out on in a play-off last year, was his second top-three finish of season. Knox's emergence on the PGA Tour is another Scottish success story which is not given the credit it deserves. On the toughest, most competitive circuit in the world - this "big, big pond" as Harrington said - the 29-year-old has established himself and is ready to win. "I just need to keep doing what I'm doing and maybe one of these days it will come," he said.
Meanwhile, Scotland has made an initial expression of interest to the Ladies' European Tour about hosting the 2019 Solheim Cup. Back in November, Herald Sport reported the enthusiasm of officials at EventScotland about the prospect of bringing the biennial match between Europe and the US to these shores for the first time since 2000. England and Wales are also among the 10 nations who have declared an early interest, with the official bidding process set to begin in the summer.
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