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CARNOUSTIE, Scotland -- Padraig Harrington did not dare let himself consider the consequences because they were just too horrible.
In the moments after he came off the 72nd hole of the 136th Open Championship, he willed himself not to consider that he had just thrown away the Claret Jug, by making what might have been a catastrophic double-bogey six.
He had played the 18th hole with a one-shot lead and committed many of the same mistakes that Jean Van de Velde had made eight years previous in famously blowing a three-shot lead. All Harrington did was blow a one-shot lead, but the consequences could have been the same.
Later on, after he had become the first Irishman to win the Open in 60 years, he admitted his dilemma as he waited while Sergio Garcia played the same hole, with a one-shot lead of his own, courtesy of his own carelessness.
"I never let myself feel like I'd lost the Open Championship as I sat watching," Harrington said. "Now if Sergio parred the last hole and I did lose, I think I would have struggled to come back out and be a competitive golfer. It meant that much to me.
"I sat there in that scorer's hut and I was as disciplined as I could be with my focus not to brood or not to consider the ifs, ands and buts. Obviously, if I had thrown it away, if it turned out like that, it would have been incredibly hard to take, it would have hit me that hard and I think I would have struggled in the future."
As it turned out, Carnoustie's 18th, a hole that Harrington calls the "toughest finishing hole in golf" was too much for Garcia to conquer, as well. He grazed the hole with what would have been a championship-winning par putt, and then lost to Harrington in a playoff.
In the end, it was Garcia who was left to plumb the depths of gloomy despair.
"It is tough, to tell you the truth," Garcia said. "In the end, I just felt I didn't do anything wrong and I lost. It always seems to me that when I get into these things, I have no room for error."
There is a constant discussion in golf about who is the best player never to have won a major. Both Harrington and Garcia have been in that conversation ever since Phil Mickelson lost the mantel by winning the Masters.
For Harrington, aged 35, a major championship always has been one of those things he dared not think too hard about. For Garcia, 27, it has been an obsession.
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"I turned pro at 21 because the guys I was able to beat as an amateur were turning pro," he said. "I thought that if I did well, I'd make a comfortable living on the Tour. After two years, I went to the U.S. Open at Congressional and it was just too difficult for me. I came home thinking I needed to do something about that.
"That's when I starting working hard at my game. It has been a long road. I don't know if I ever really believed I would do it, but I tried to convince myself, especially this week, that I could."
On Tuesday of this week, Harrington suggested in an interview session that "good guys can win, too. You don't have to hate your opponents to be able to compete against them." He was responding to some Nick Faldo comments about players on today's Tour being "too chummy."
Crucially, Harrington came to the first tee in the playoff, not feeling down because he had blown the 72nd hole. He had willed that behind a firewall in his mind and made two magnificent swings to set up a birdie while Garcia, still in shock that he hadn't won, made bogey. He never truly recovered.