I haven’t seen much about this but I think it’s a really interesting story.
For the past 3 years Padraig Harrington has chosen to prepare for the links golf at The Open by playing a ‘local’ event on a links course. He spurns the big money event at Loch Lomond and turns out in the the Irish PPGA Championship at The European Club, owned and designed by GCA member Pat Ruddy.
http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/sport/2009/0708/1224250236506.html“In 2007 here, Harrington beat Brendan McGovern in a play-off and, lo and behold, won the Open at Carnoustie in a play-off over Sergio Garcia. Then, last year, Harrington triumphed by four shots here over Philip Walton and the following week had four strokes to spare over Ian Poulter at Royal Birkdale. No wonder he’s looking for some inspiration from this week, where the tournament is of far more importance than the €26,005 purse, with €4,000 to the winner.
Harrington, who utilised the extra free days he had off after missing the cut in last week’s French Open by playing two practice rounds at Turnberry, knows that the links here – with rough set up to the same standards as players will find in the British Open – offers a perfect examination.
As Pat Ruddy, the owner and designer of The European, put it yesterday in agreeing that he unashamedly sets up the course as per the Open, “there are two purposes. We are hosting the national championship, which is a great honour. And then the excitement, the fun and the challenge of perhaps helping minutely a great golfer get ready for a great event next week. It’s only logical . . . . when people are to run at altitude, they go high up to prepare. So this is a version of the same thing – to acclimatise a man, to get him ready.”
Harrington returned home from his reconnaissance visit to Turnberry believing it to have the heaviest rough he has experienced at a major. “As Peter Dawsons (of the RA) says, they don’t control it. That is what a links golf course is and it’s real. I’ve never seen rough as heavy so close to greens.”
What Harrington, and the other 119 players in the field, will discover over the next four days at the European Club is a course with rough comparable in toughness to that at Turnberry. “It’s important he (Harrington) has a good training ground and if anyone gets at him, they are worthy of getting at him. It’s a stress test, (and) stress-testing is part of life,” said Ruddy.”
It would be easy to be cynical and point out that a) this is an event Padriag can play from his own bed and still find time in the day to get to the range and b) this is good promotion for the European Club.
Whilst that’s true, I have to say I met Pat Ruddy there last summer and asked him about this. He showed me where the rough had been grown in and said to get it set up like Birkdale he wanted the players to have small targets to see. He felt those moving from Loch Lomond to Birkdale would suffer shock at how small a target they had to aim at. Those moving form TEC to Birkdale would be confident that there’s more room than there seems to be. It would be interesting to know if TEC is set up differently this year than last?
Pat was also explicit that this course engineering was designed and agreed as a plan with the Irish Golf authorities and with Harrington agreeing to take part in the experiment.
Finally the other thing that struck me was that Pat Ruddy pays a personal price for doing this. If you meet him you’ll get some marvellous stories but you’ll also get his deep love for the game and his pride in the creation of the European Club. Part of his vision is that only a comparatively few people play there each day, ‘playing’ in comparitive solitude amongst these wild dunes. As we looked at the tallest dune, six weeks after the event, surveying the damage to the grasses that all the spectator’s wreck, he was genuinely saddened.
Ireland now has its greatest ever golfer and Pat Ruddy has played a part in that story. Thank you Pat.