2008 in review: Those Irish eyes of Padraig Harrington
By Mike McAllister, PGATOUR.COM Managing Editor
What will you remember about the 2008 season? That was the simple question we asked PGATOUR.COM staffers and freelance contributors, who responded with a series of short essays that we will post during November (click here for the archive link).
The thing about a shark, it's got lifeless eyes, black eyes, like a doll's eyes. When it comes at you, it doesn't seem to be livin' ... until he bites you, and those black eyes roll over white. -- actor Robert Shaw (Quint) in the movie Jaws
I don't know about lifeless eyes. Or doll's eyes. Or rolling over white. In fact, it doesn't appear that Padraig Harrington's eyes are even pure black -- they're more dark brown. And he's certainly not the Shark, even though he defeated one earlier this year at Royal Birkdale.
But I do know this -- in winning half of this year's majors, the man from Dublin, Ireland, flashed the most intense pair of eyes I've ever seen from one player. It was downright scary and certainly haunting, those dark eyes never blinking, just staying wide open, determined to find the next big putt to drop, the next clutch shot to hit.
Add the grit of his big pearly-white upper teeth and the curl of his lower lip, and you've got the look of a killer -- just like a certain predator in the open seas.
When Tiger Woods closed up shop following his U.S. Open win at Torrey Pines, the golf community wondered which player -- if any -- would take advantage of the opportunity to become the sport's dominant figure. Harrington was a name that might've been mentioned, but was he really on your short list? Be honest. The more likely candidates were the obvious ones -- Phil Mickelson, Sergio Garcia, Anthony Kim, Adam Scott, even Masters winner Trevor Immelman, all of whom already had posted wins in the first half of 2008.
Meanwhile, Harrington had yet to win in 24 starts on the PGA TOUR and European Tour since claiming his first major, the Open Championship, in 2007. But he did have four top-5 finishes in the early part of the 2008 TOUR season, including a T5 at Augusta. In retrospect, maybe those dark eyes were about to roll over white, but we just never noticed.
Once he got to Royal Birkdale, Harrington was a man on a mission, battling the 50-mph winds better than anyone else that weekend and eventually overtaking Greg Norman in the final round to become the first European in more than a century to defend an Open title.
At the next major, the PGA Championship, he seemed to shoot himself out of it in the first two rounds ... and then shot himself right back into the winner's circle with a pair of weekend 66s as he once again stared down Garcia at a major.
That's the thing with Harrington and those dark, intense eyes -- nobody beats him in a staring contest. And in 2008, it was hard to beat him on the golf course, too.
Mike McAllister, the Managing Editor of PGATOUR.COM, has never seen a shark's eyes up close, but he has seen Jaws no less than 15 times.
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