THOUSAND OAKS, CALIF. -- Perhaps it is only fitting that Padraig Harrington first gained notoriety in North America when he walked more than 150 yards to the 17th green at The Country Club to check the hole location at the Ryder Cup.
Few players pay such attention to detail.
Even in the silly season, Harrington would be on the practice range until it was too dark and too cold to continue.
Him being elected PGA Tour player of the year was no accident.
Vijay Singh for years was credited as the hardest-working man in golf because he spends so many hours on the practice range. Others would argue that Tiger Woods works the hardest because he is the most efficient with his time. Harrington is a little of both.
"I'm an optimist," he said. "Every day I get out there, I think I'm getting better."
The Irishman won only two tournaments this year, but became the first European in more than a century to win back-to-back at the British Open. A month later, he became the first European ever to win successive majors in the same season by capturing the PGA Championship.
There's Colin Montgomerie and Sergio Garcia, but Harrington is the face of European golf.
'ABILITY TO LEARN'
"I probably never was necessarily destined as the one to be picked out to go on to such great heights," Harrington said. "At all stages, I'm somebody who has worked hard. And probably my greatest trait is my ability to learn, apply myself to tasks, find out what needs to be done and to move on."
Harrington was once known for all those runner-up finishes he had -- 14 in a four-year span at the turn of the decade.
A born tinkerer, he can recall more than one occasion when he was leading or in contention going into the final round, and he spent his time on the practice range that morning changing his swing to get ready for a bigger tournament down the road.
"Nowadays, it would be madness to do something like that," he said.
His great season was topped off by a week that made all the work worthwhile.
In a span of eight days, Harrington was voted player of the year by the European tour; by the British-based Association of Golf Writers; by the Golf Writers Association of America (with 75% of the vote); and by his colleagues on the PGA Tour.
AS GOOD AS A MAJOR
The most recent was the most meaningful because it was a vote of the players.
"You do want and crave the respect of your fellow pros," he said. "And the fact that they have picked me as their player of the year, I find it hard to describe. I've probably never received as high an accolade in my life. It compares equally to winning a major championship."
The PGA Tour does not release voting totals. Harrington said he abstained.
"I wouldn't believe in voting for myself," he said. "But I did dearly want to win it, so I wasn't going to vote for somebody else."
If he were to win at Augusta National in April, Harrington would join Tiger Woods and Ben Hogan as the only players to win three majors in a row since the Masters began in 1934. Woods was sidelined when Harrington won the last two majors.
Whatever happens, it will not be from a lack of effort.
