Padraig Harrington: A star faded in past wins
Padraig Harrington is a star that faded in his past wins. The player must come out of his reputation of playing well but losing all the golf events since 2007, to reclaim his lost golf glories this year.
The player must pull off victories in a couple of major golf events in the 2012 season to prove his critics wrong and to show that he still holds the potential to emerge on the world golf scene as a well celebrated star.
Harrington has won as many as 26 golf titles in his professional career until 2007. This includes three major golf tournaments.
However, he has been on the slide since then. He took part in almost all of the golf events worldwide, played well but fell short of winning in more or less every single one of them.
Therefore, the two contradictory phases of his professional career, one before 2007 and the other afterwards, leave the analysts with two types of projections.
One is that his winless spell will continue, whereas the other view is that he stands well qualified to win some golf events this year.
They, however, end up short of giving a guarantee for the latter claim. Even Harrington himself might not be able to predict wins for the 2012 year if he takes a realistic review of his performance since 2007.
Harrington’s 2011 season was not remarkable either. He appeared in 18 events, made 14 cuts and only three top-10 finishes.
Many analysts referring to his current performance believe that he has not been able to make good finishes and, consequently, has less chances of winning a tournament in 2012, given his somewhat unimpressive form.
On the contrary, there are people who look at the initial stage of his career, when he turned professional after a successful amateur career in 1995.
Continuing with his brilliant amateur form in his professional career, he earned his first professional victory in the 1996 Peugeot Spanish Open with an impressive style. He had a 4-stroke lead over Gordon Brand Jnr. after the final round of the tournament.
However, he went out of the scene after that and remained winless for about four years before he made a strong comeback in 2000, with two wins on the European Tour.
That was the time when he seemed to have returned with great strength and won at least a couple of events every year until 2008.
He was enjoying his top performances in his career and won two major championships in 2008, including the Open championship which he won for the second time in a row.
No one could have imagined that major wins would be the start of his downfall in his golfing career.
Other than the 2009 Irish PGA Championship win, he has not been able to win a single event in the last three years.
However, his fans and followers believe that he can make a strong comeback again, like the one in 2000. He only needs to believe in himself and play as he used to in the past.
Apart from what critics and analysts say about Harrington, if one makes a fact-based review, they will conclude that his current form will not let him win any PGA Tour events in the 2012 season.
With the emergence of many young talented players, like Keegan Bradley, Rory McIlroy, Web Simpson, putting up a tough competition in every tournament they play in, Harrington will really have to shape up.
However, one can expect a u-turn from any player in the game of golf. As has been observed in the past, players have made strong returns to astonish the analysts and fans of golf.
All depends on how Harrington plays in the upcoming season. Unless he astounds golf followers with his great performances, one can simply say that he will remain winless again.
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