Harrington happy to be in Bermuda

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IT MUST be nice to know – as Padraig Harrington does – that he could fail to break 100 in Bermuda today and tomorrow and still walk away almost £120,000 richer.

That is last-place money in the four-man 36-hole PGA Grand Slam of Golf – an event designed to bring together the year’s quartet of major champions, but this time boasting only two of them.

Tiger Woods is not there because of injury – and Harrington’s amazing double of Open and US PGA titles meant, of course, that two replacements were needed.

Jim Furyk and Retief Goosen are the pair who step in to join Harrington and Masters champion Trevor Immelman competing for a first prize of £350,000.

A “two-day jolly” was how Harrington himself described the tournament after a disappointing Ryder Cup when he also admitted: “I can’t wait for the end of the season.”

That will not stop him, though, from being determined to make up for what happened on his Grand Slam debut last year.

He led by four with 11 to go but went into a play-off when Angel Cabrera eagled the last and lost to the US Open champion at the third extra hole.

Having tripled his major title collection since then, Harrington will look back fondly on 2008 whatever happens at Mid-Ocean or in the remaining weeks of the year – but he does still have hopes of regaining the European Order of Merit title.

Those hopes, however, could nosedive later this week because Robert Karlsson looks to make it three victories in a row at the Portugal Masters. The Swede’s win at the Dunhill Links Championship swept him into a £112,000 lead over Harrington in the battle for the No.1 spot, and he could stretch the gap to more than £500,000 with only the Volvo Masters to come for them. Depending on the exchange rate, the winner’s cheque at Valderrama will be about £530,000.