What makes a champion?

Supremely intelligent, his mouth struggles to keep up with the speed at which he is thinking, to the point where it becomes borderline unintelligible as different ideas become intertwined.

Among his more prescient observations, though, is his breakdown of the mental anatomy of the pro golfer.

“Probably 1% are fearless, usually kids coming into the game. They have no scars, no mental damage,” he said.

These are the players who fire at pins no matter what the angle or how intimidating the hazards. The jovial Irishman suggests they are players who think rather less about the sport, or at least what can go wrong, than the likes of himself.

“You’ve had a few star players who have done that for quite a bit of their career. Usually those players are not . . . I won’t use the word bright, because it’s not to do with their intelligence, but usually that sort of person doesn’t think anything through. They just go about their business.”

In sports with more of an emphasis on physicality these are often the most successful. In golf, however, there is much more thinking time, as well as hugely extended periods at the top, and Harrington reckons the nature of the sport forces the risk-takers to change.

“Unfortunately for that 1%, when the can of worms is opened, they will always struggle to get the lid back on, because, you know, they played with freedom, naivete, the game was easy and, all of a sudden, there are complications. Careers that have gone completely off the wall, that’s what’s happened. There was no fear and all of a sudden there’s fear,” he said.

“However 98.X% of golfers, have some amount of fear in their game . . . When they win obviously it’s less, but they are muddled up, trying to keep their thoughts together, trying to manage it all, somewhere good, somewhere bad, try to manage their swing, technique, everything. Depending on the standard of player, at different times it goes up and down.

“Then at the very, very end, you’ve got .0001% of golfers who have figured out how to control their fear. Jack Nicklaus. Ben Hogan. They understood the challenges, the technical side, the mental side, how to prepare for tournaments, how to shut it down, how to get it going. You know, that’s sustainable. The bit in the middle, good and bad, why does a guy win a tournament one week and then miss the cut the next? Why does a guy look like a superstar for six months or a year, and then he’s gone?

“We could go through all the records and you would see how many guys played well for one year and then went back to their old selves -- not fully understanding what they are doing, but doing a reasonable job. The goal would be to get to that .0001% who have an understanding of what they are doing. It doesn’t mean they do everything right all the time but they know what they are doing and that’s, I suppose, sustainability. Longevity is over there, and there are very few people who have ever got to that. We are all in the middle trying to keep our head above water.”

Given the way Rory McIlroy recovered from his collapse at last year’s Open and his calamitous closing round at the Masters in April to dominate the US Open at Congressional last month, it was tempting to suggest that the 22-year-old has somehow circumvented the process of moving from fearlessness, to the lid coming off the can of worms, to working out how to win. For his fellow Irishman, that is unthinkable.

“I can’t believe he is, no. He’s too young. No, no. Definitely not,” Harrington said. “He’s had a few hard lessons that will help him get there. And it does take some hard lessons I think to get to that situation.”

However Harrington, who turns 40 this year, did identify one of his European peers whom he believes is close to being at that stage.

“I’ll tell you who is not far away from it: Lee Westwood,” he offered. “He’s had the hard lessons. There’s a lot of pain and hardship to get to that stage that you understand how to play this game and what makes you tick. He will be close, no doubt about it.”

A prolific early winner who ended Colin Montgomerie’s seven-year reign as leader of the European Order of Merit, Westwood underwent a huge slump, with a four-year wait between tournament wins from 2003 to 2007. Since then he has worked his way to No.1 in the world rankings, is currently second, and Harrington believes that if he wins one major, as he has threatened to do several times, he will win many more.

“Oh, Lee is a prolific winner and could be a prolific winner of majors,” he said. “Of all the players who has a good understanding of their game, he’s right in there. He would be a perfect example I believe, of one of the 1% of fearless golfers -- and then the can of worms opened and it took him a long time to try to get that lid back on. And there was a lot of pain in that.

“He’s probably your best example. Very few players who are in the fearless category ever open it up, then ever make anything of it. But Lee Westwood is one who has actually managed. And you could have put him in the category of… the minute he tried to change his golf swing he opened up a whole new world to himself and it was a struggle for a long, long time and he has figured a way to control that. That’s the biggest achievement. He was a prolific winner before, he is [again] now, so majors are a natural follow-on and if he does start winning them they will get easier and easier. I would pick him as the guy that’s closest to that Nirvana.”

As for Westwood’s chances this week, well, once again Harrington seemed to have several conflicting ideas all bursting to get out at once.

“I would not pick Lee as the most likely at Sandwich. I think he has a chance of winning but wouldn’t be my favourite. I don’t think it’s his golf course, and maybe that will help him, maybe the pressure will be slightly off him there,” he reckoned. “I would pick a venue like Congressional -- a big, tough challenge -- as a golf course for Lee to win on. Not a tricky golf course. It’s not a big hitter’s course. Yes, you want to be a straight hitter, but it’s tricky enough I think that it doesn’t necessarily suit his game. It doesn’t mean he can’t win there, but I won’t be picking it out. Lee would be more competitive on Muirfield … real solid strong, links golf course.”

All of which prompts just one further question. With all of this going on in his head, how on earth did Padraig Harrington ever manage to focus for long enough to win the titles he has?