Work In Progress

Harrington overcame a wrist injury to win, a victory shared with his two Bobs (Rotella, above left, and Torrance). Photo: andrew redington/getty images

Royal Birkdale was different. Harrington had a chance to crack when he gave the lead back to Norman with another three-bogey streak beginning with a bad tee shot on the seventh and including three missed putts inside 10 feet. But he didn't get down, and when he cross-handed in a five-foot par-save on the 10th, he went on a run of ruthless closing that was Woodsian. With three great approaches through heavy winds from at least 225 yards, Harrington played the 13th, 15th and 17th in birdie, birdie, eagle to come home in four-under 32, tying the best back nine score of the week precisely at winning time.

"This year is more satisfying," said Harrington. "I feel more accomplished this year. I'm really thrilled with the way I felt today on the golf course. I felt really within myself, very comfortable."

It's the product of countless lessons from Harrington's two Bobs, Torrance and Rotella. The 76-year-old Torrance has been Harrington's swing coach for 12 years. The two are tremendously close, to the point that Torrance and his wife, June, keep a room open for Harrington at their home in Scotland, which is called the Ben Hogan Suite. With the dramatic changes Torrance has supervised, and the victory at Royal Birkdale, the pair now rank with the great makeover partnerships of Faldo and David Leadbetter, and Mark O'Meara and Hank Haney.

Torrance knew he had a major project when he first saw Harrington's swing. Among other things, Torrance bluntly told Golf Digest in 2003, "He had no leverage. He hit the ball no distance. He was a poor striker. The flight on his shots had no penetration." But Torrance also said "Padraig is prepared to get worse in order to get better. Not many are."

Indeed, Torrance calls Harrington "an ideal student, a perfect student. He doesn't agree with everything I say, but we don't argue about it. He lets me make my case. When I taught Seve, he would argue. Seve learned very little. Padraig has learned a lot.

"He's extremely intelligent. He understands the big principles I learned from Hogan, but he's careful not to get lost in theory. You know, golf is the hardest and most complicated game man ever invented. Padraig is smart enough to keep the golf swing simple. The main thing is that he will work at a change until he gets it. Now he hits the ball miles longer, with a great strike, and his swing is reliable under pressure. He knows his swing is good enough now, so he lets go." Here the old man leans in. "That's also because he's got b----. Big ones."

Harrington with caddie Ronan Flood. Photo: andrew redington/getty images

Still, as good as it has become, Harrington's muscular swing will probably always fall into the utilitarian category. It's more mentally that he's proving himself a superstar.

"Padraig is a good learner because he had to learn," says Rotella. "If you want to be a champion and it doesn't come to you readily or easily, you do whatever you have to do. And some people run away from it. They say, 'I don't have the ability, I don't have the talent, I don't have the potential.' And other people say, 'I know it's in there somewhere, and I've just got to get it out.' That's Padraig.

"What he understands so well," says Rotella, "is that you don't have to be the winner to be a winner. And once you come to grips with the concept of 'I'm going to have a clear mind on every shot, and I'm going to accept wherever it goes and go find it and get it in the hole,' when you really decide that's the only thing you have any control over, it starts getting easier to be the winner."

Rotella continued: "It's funny, but Greg Norman said to me at lunch Thursday, 'You know that Harrington, you can just watch him play on television and from the look on his face, you know he's got a great mind.' And I'm sure Greg could sense it even more on Sunday.

"Honestly, I don't think he can do what I want him to do any better than he's doing it right now. Saturday night I told him, 'Padraig, there's nothing more to tell you. You're getting what I want you to get. There's nothing we are going to change or add. You've just got to keep doing this.' And did he do it on those last nine holes."