A year after missing Tour Championship, Harrington in fine playoff shape
Through darkness, he sees light. Through calamity, he sees prosperity. And through a faulty golf swing, he sees nothing but shots that knock down the flag.
If we have come to know anything about Padraig Harrington in the past few years as he won three major championships then lost his game and fought his way back, it is that the man is unfailingly optimistic and positive.
These are just a couple of examples.
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Sergio Garcia stands on the outside looking in at this week's Deutsche Bank Championship, which starts Friday. The Spaniard will need to improve upon his position of No. 71 in the FedEx Cup rankings if he wants to play next week at Cog Hill.
A year ago, when he had won back-to-back major championships but was eliminated from the FedEx Cup playoffs because of the volatile nature of the 2008 proceedings, Harrington was asked whether he thought it was wrong that the winner of the British Open and PGA Championship would be denied a spot in the Tour Championship.
"I don't believe so," Harrington said last year. "I actually think it's probably right. I think the whole idea is this is a four-week event. It has a little reflection of the year, but it's really a four-week event, and it's the guys who do the best in those four weeks should be there. … I think you need to have people missing out. We need to have players get knocked out. That's what happens in a playoff."
In a year in which it took him until August to post his first top-10 on the PGA Tour -- after having endured a stretch of five straight missed cuts around the world -- Harrington nonetheless spoke of having no regrets.
"It's been an interesting year in terms of -- I definitely found what I was looking for," Harrington said. "And in that process, I probably learned a lot more about my game than I ever could have wished to have learned. It's been very, very constructive the last eight months, very positive going forward."
Last week at The Barclays, when nearly everyone was deploring the Liberty National course, Harrington found the good in it.
"This is a phenomenal golf course," Harrington said. "I think this is good enough for a major. This is a major golf course we are playing here, this is a superb test, really puts us right on the limit. This is exactly what we should be playing. This is an excellent golf course. It may look good, but the actual layout of the golf course, it's a real test out there. And at all stages, you've got to pay attention. Absolutely."
Now here we are headed into the Deutsche Bank Championship, the second of the four FedEx Cup playoff events, and Harrington has jumped out of seemingly nowhere and into contention.
With his tie for second at The Barclays -- along with Ernie Els, Tiger Woods and Steve Stricker -- Harrington missed a playoff by a stroke. He moved from 66th to 14th in the standings and has all but assured himself a spot at the Tour Championship after missing the tournament a year ago.
It was his third consecutive top-10 finish and followed being in contention at the WGC-Bridgestone Invitational and the PGA Championship.
His FedEx positioning is a lot better than several big names can boast of right now. Sergio Garcia (71), Bubba Watson (72), Vijay Singh (78) -- the reigning FedEx Cup champion -- and Justin Rose (80) are all outside the top 70, meaning not only do they need some good play to make it to Atlanta but they need to do something this week even to move on to Chicago because only the top 70 will advance to the BMW Championship.
And players such as J.B. Holmes and Boo Weekley will be looking over their shoulders and in need of a good week to secure their positions at the BMW and make getting to the Tour Championship a bit easier.
Perhaps they can learn a thing or two from Harrington, who remains relentlessly upbeat.
"Hopefully a bit of form coming in will carry through to the week," Harrington said at the TPC Boston, where the Deutsche Bank Championship begins Friday. "It is interesting that my FedEx Cup this year has improved so much with one event. Whereas maybe last year, the system didn't work for me. This year, it seems to be working for me."
Analyzing Tiger
You always have to remind yourself to look at the big picture with Tiger Woods. His stretch of 1-1-2-2 since missing the cut at the British Open is amazing for anyone else. For him, because he missed chances to win the past two events -- the PGA Championship and The Barclays -- there seems to be this need to figure out what is wrong.
Clearly, Woods has struggled on the greens at the tournaments in which he came up short. He had four three-putts at the Masters, for example, and finished 4 shots back; he had four more putts at the U.S. Open than Lucas Glover, and finished 4 back. At the PGA, he had two more putts than Y.E. Yang. Last week, he finished 54th in the field in putting average -- and missed a playoff by a stroke.
But last week at The Barclays, Woods showed what many never remember having seen from him -- indifference. From afar, and through his words and actions, it appeared -- at least for the beginning of the tournament -- as if Woods wanted to be anywhere but New Jersey.
Throughout his career, Woods has maintained the modest schedule he keeps so as to be fresh every time he plays. That's why you see him give such a supreme effort every time. Most players recognize that they are going to have off weeks and might even mail it in when things are not going their way, but it is difficult to recall an instance like that for Woods.
At Liberty National, however, it was clear Woods was not thrilled with the course or the greens. And perhaps he was still feeling a bit burned out, playing his fourth tournament in five weeks and knowing he still has three in the next four weeks and then the Presidents Cup.
Yet there he was on Sunday with a 7-footer that would have got him into a playoff. Surprisingly, he missed, but put in context, Woods remains on a remarkable run.
A look at this week's venue
The TPC Boston is a private club that is part of the TPC network of courses. It opened in 2002 and became the home to the Deutsche Bank Championship in the event's debut the next year. Designed by Arnold Palmer, the course is 7,207 yards and plays to a par of 71.
The course has gone through a renovation under the direction of architect Gil Hanse but traditionally has yielded numerous low numbers.
Last year, Vijay Singh shot a final-round 63 and all four rounds in the 60s on the way to a winning score of 22 under par. The highest winning score since the tournament's inception was 270, 14 under par, when Olin Browne won in 2005.
The tournament began in 2003, and it is where Adam Scott -- playing on a sponsor's exemption -- got his first PGA Tour victory. Since then, Singh has won twice, along with Tiger Woods and Phil Mickelson as well as Browne.
Bob Harig covers golf for ESPN.com. He can be reached at BobHarig@gmail.com.
Birdies and bogeys
Birdies
1. Heath Slocum. From barely making the FedEx Cup playoff field to now having a chance to win $10 million after his victory at The Barclays. That is a Cinderella story if there ever was one.
2. Annika Sorenstam. The LPGA legend gave birth to a baby girl this week. Now let the speculation begin as to whether she'll return to competitive golf.
3. Byeong-Hun An. "Ben" An became the youngest player to win the U.S. Amateur when he defeated Clemson's Ben Martin in the finals, becoming the second straight Korean-born golfer to win the title. An is just 17.
Bogeys
1. Tiger Woods. It is hard to knock a guy for finishing second, but Tiger would be the first to admit he let an opportunity get away at The Barclays, where he missed too many putts to count.
2. Liberty National. The course offered terrific views of New York City but left many of the players complaining. Then again, they were all playing the same course, and having $7.5 million on the line should be enough to make them get over it.
3. Kenny Perry. Did he really fire his longtime caddie, Fred Sanders, through his agent? Say it ain't so, Kenny.
Presidential Positioning
This is the last chance for players to impress captains Fred Couples and Greg Norman for inclusion on their respective Presidents Cup teams.
Couples, the U.S. captain, and Norman, who will head up the International team, will make their at-large selections Tuesday in Washington, D.C. The matches will be played Oct. 8-11 at Harding Park in San Francisco.
The 10 automatic qualifiers for both teams were decided after the PGA Championship.
On the American side, U.S. Open champion Lucas Glover and Hunter Mahan, who played on the last Ryder Cup and Presidents Cup teams, appear to be Couples' candidates. He has all but said so, although Brian Gay -- who has won twice this year -- remains in the mix.
Norman's choices are much more difficult to pinpoint. He has said he will consider any player among the top 40 in the final points. South Africa's Rory Sabbatini was bumped out of the top 10 when Y.E. Yang won the PGA Championship. India's Jeev Milka Singh, who was injured for most of the summer, had been in the top 10 for most of the year.
Despite poor form this year, Adam Scott finished 14th in the standings. Japan's Ryo Ishikawa would be an intriguing pick. So would K.J. Choi, who, despite having a tough year, would make a good partner for Yang because of the language difficulties the South Koreans normally would face.
Notables
• There are a lot of perks for Heath Slocum after his victory at The Barclays, namely getting to play in all four major championships next year. He has assured himself a spot in the Tour Championship. That gets him into the Masters (so did the victory), as well as the U.S. Open and British Open. The victory also gets him into the PGA Championship. In his only major this year, Slocum missed the cut at the U.S. Open.
• Four players played their way into the Deutsche Bank Championship at The Barclays. Richard S. Johnson, Troy Matteson, Fredrik Jacobson and Slocum all were outside the top 100. Slocum and Matteson were the last two players to qualify at 124 and 125. Slocum, of course, won The Barclays and moved up to third in the standings.
• As expected, there were some tough finishes along the way. Among them was that of Chris Riley, who bogeyed the final hole at Liberty National to cost himself a spot among the top 100. The bogey bounced him to 103rd.
• The Deutsche Bank Championship will be the last playoff event to have a 36-hole cut. Next week's BMW Championship has a field of just 70 players, and all compete through the weekend. Same with the 30-player Tour Championship.
• Phil Mickelson will be making his 400th career start this week at the Deutsche Bank Championship, where he won two years ago in a stirring final-round duel with Tiger Woods. Mickelson is 10th in the FedEx Cup standings.
• Briny Baird finds himself "on the bubble" this week as he is 70th in the FedEx Cup standings -- with only the top 70 advancing to the BMW Championship. Baird dropped 19 spots after missing the cut at The Barclays.
• Paul Casey had hoped to play in the Deutsche Bank Championship after missing the Bridgestone, the PGA Championship and The Barclays with a rib injury but withdrew on Wednesday. The Englishman, who has won three times this year around the world, was No. 18 in the FedEx Cup standings when the playoffs began and fell to No. 27 while sitting out. He'll fall even lower after missing this week's event.
Although he's a lock to make it to the BMW Championship in Chicago even if he doesn't play this week, Casey could see his chance to make it to the Tour Championship -- which is for the top 30 only -- slip away if he falls too much further.
• And then there's the Race to Dubai. Casey is second in the European Tour standings to Germany's Martin Kaymer, who won back-to-back tournaments earlier this year. Alas, Kaymer is injured, too. While at his U.S. base in Arizona, he injured his foot in a motor cart accident and is out for at least a month.
Quotable
"Overall, it was an incredible day, an incredible experience. I was just kind of lucky to come out on top. A lot of good players. At the end of the day, the putt on the last was magical. I'll remember that for the rest of my life."
-- Heath Slocum, whose 21-foot par putt on the 18th hole at The Barclays gave him a 1-stroke victory over Tiger Woods, Padraig Harrington, Ernie Els and Steve Stricker.
Catching up with last year's champ
Vijay Singh won last year's Deutsche Bank Championship, all but clinching the FedEx Cup title with two events left to play. But Singh has not won since then and is in danger of seeing his streak of at least one victory in seven straight seasons come to an end.
Singh missed the cut last week at The Barclays and enters the Deutsche Bank No. 78 in the FedEx Cup standings. Only the top 70 advance to next week's BMW Championship near Chicago.
Deutsche Bank Championship picks
Birdie Buster. Steve Stricker. Second in the FedEx Cup standings to Tiger Woods, Stricker is also second to Woods with nine top-10 finishes this year (Woods has 12) and, like Woods, is coming off a tie for second at The Barclays.
Horse for the Course. Vijay Singh. The only two-time winner of the Deutsche Bank at TPC Boston, Singh has four top-four finishes in five starts at the venue.
Super Sleeper. Daniel Chopra enters the Deutsche Bank last among those players still competing at No. 100. That's where he was heading into The Barclays, and a tie for 56th kept him there.
Winner. Tiger Woods. You just get the feeling that two runner-up finishes in a row has Woods poised to do whatever it takes to win this week.