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Joe O'Muircheartaigh
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 PADRAIG Harrington is now more than just Ireland's greatest ever international Ð he's something of a 'People's Champion' too. A dedicated and hardworking pro who goes about his business of winning major championships with a smile on his face. He might have that look in his eye when it comes to the back nine, but the smile is always there as well.
And, believe it or not, the Padraig Harrington we know today can be traced all the way back to the Lahinch links, to a time when he wasn't one of the most popular players on the golf course and when he wasn't smiling.
If anything Harrington was Mr Unpopular, all thanks to a stormy South of Ireland Championship in 1995. However, out of the darkness and disappointment came a silver lining that certainly teed Harrington up for a great professional career.
It all happened in Lahinch that August 13 years ago Ð the bad and the good through Harrington's highs and lows in the South of Ireland and Irish Close championships. Lahinch saw it all over the course of a few memorable weeks.
Harrington was a seasoned South of Ireland competitor by the time he came to Lahinch in '95 Ð always striving to emulate the achievements of his near-contemporaries Darren Clarke and Paul McGinley by winning the oldest of the provincial golf titles before joining the paid ranks.
Clarke got the green jacket in '90 while McGinley followed him in '91.
Harrington came agonisingly close in '94 but was beaten on the home hole by Waterville's David Higgins. He reached the final again the following year, but again suffered the agony of defeat on the 18th, this time being second best to Miltown's Jody Fanagan.
However, it's safe to say that the real story of the South that year was Harrington's quarter-final clash with fellow international Bryan Omelia from Newlands. Harrington won the match with a birdie four at the 18th, but wasn't a happy man because of the controversy that went before. It was a small powder keg.
I was working with the good ship Clare FM back then Ð my work station for South of Ireland week being the station's new outside broadcast bus that was stationed hard by the first tee. In that bus former South champion Mick Morris told me about why he turned his back on Kerry football in 1970 and turned to golf instead.
Beside the bus and down towards the putting green Harrington told anyone who was listening why he was spitting with anger over on-course activity during his match with Omelia. It was the Tuesday afternoon of South of Ireland week, Harrington wasn't smiling, and for a few days became very unpopular.
'I was really angry,' he said. 'Some children, and one in particular, was a constant source of annoyance. He started before the match and booed me on occasions and cheered when I played a bad shot. I know that particular youngster. This is not a children's playground. Surely children like that should be controlled by the stewards,' he added.
Harrington had just lodged a complaint with the Munster branch of the Golfing Union of Ireland, but the provincial body's chairman, Percy Shannon, dismissed the complaint. 'We were totally unaware of any problems out on the course, not was our attention drawn to any such problems until after the match. In the circumstances we could scarcely take any action on a matter of which we were totally unaware,' he said.
However, it didn't end there. At the end of the game, a woman spectator approached Harrington's caddie, his older brother Tadhg, over incidents which took place during the match.
'The way you spoke to your opponent's caddie at the 12th tee was a disgrace. You should be ashamed of yourself,' she blasted. Omelia's caddie was 12-year-old Pat Burke, son of the great Kilmurry Ibrickane and Kilmacud Crokes footballer Pat Burke.
The whole affair left a sour taste, so much so that the following day most of the neutrals in the gallery that followed the final were rooting for Fanagan. And when he won on the final green he came down to the Clare FM broadcast bus and as the crowd gathered around he talked about what it was like to beat Harrington in the final.
Harrington, meanwhile, cut something of a lonely figure as he came to terms with another second place final in a major championship Ð for the 23-year-old it was his sixth final hurdle loss in as many years. Two South finals, two North finals and two Close finals made up his unhappy six-timer.
However, every cloud has a silver lining and two weeks later Harrington turned a huge corner in his career in what proved to be his final championship appearance as an amateur.
All because of his three and two win over Birr's Richard Coughlan in the Irish Close final. Afterwards he said of past failures: 'I think one of my problems was that I was too intense in finals. This time I decided to change my mental approach. I cannot think of a better way to end my championship involvement than by winning this title.'
And, as Harrington talked, the smile we now take as a given was as broad as it ever was during his amateur career. He was well on the road to becoming the Mr Popular we now today.
Maybe it was fitting that the his third major championship victory, which confirmed his status as the only serious rival to Tiger Woods' domination of the game, came at the USPGA Championship.
It's Lahinch you see Ð Lahinch's links to the USPGA that could be said to have been brought full circle with Harrington's success. Willie
McNamara was professional at Lahinch from 1899 to 1927, while his first cousin Tom McNamara was one of the leading professionals on the
American circuit in the first two decades of the last century. McNamara had successes in the Metropolitan, Philadelphia and Western Opens to his name, while he was a three-time runner-up in the US Open.
However, it's his connection with the USPGA that has won him enduring fame.
When he wasn't on the professional circuit, McNamara worked for Rodman Wanamaker, who had a department store in New York. At the time Wanamaker was locked in a battle with Spalding for the sale of golf balls across America as the game started to grow in popularity in new country clubs that were mushrooming up overnight.
McNamara's plan was that Wanamaker's money should help bring professionals together under one organisation and then they in turn would help market his golf balls. Wanamaker went with McNamara's marketing idea and 35 professionals came together in New York's Taplow Club on 18 January, 1918. It was the start of the US PGA, with Wanamaker putting up a large silver trophy and $2,580 in purse money for a professional only championship. That championship was the US PGA Championship. Given to the world by Clareman Tom McNamara and brought back to Ireland for the first time by Padraig Harrington who learned how to be a winner in the Irish Close all those 13 years ago.
And he did it smiling too
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