Despite his competitive finish, Harrington regretted not having his game where it needs to be in order for him to win.
"To be honest, I wish I was a little bit more prepared at this time of year, because these golf courses are kind of like playing golf at home, so it would be right up my street in terms of giving me a competitive advantage," Harrington said.
As for having a look at the site of this year's U.S. Open, Harrington allowed that Pebble Beach will be a different course in some respects, but that there is one aspect that will remain constant.
"I like the fact that it's about getting some sightlines," Harrington said. "And, you know, I always tend to miss a little bit right or this hole plays a little bit shorter or this putt breaks this way or it's not as slow as it looks. All those sort of things are what you learn when you play a golf course over and over in a competitive situation."
EUROPEAN TOUR
Darren Clarke stood only two strokes off the lead heading into the final round of the Avantha Masters at DLF Golf & Country Club in New Delhi, India, a not overly daunting task. But complicating matters was a seven-man logjam at the top of the leaderboard; expecting each of the seven to shoot a merely pedestrian round was a bit much to hope for, and, thus, Clarke settled for a share of eighth place, four strokes behind the victorious Andrew Dodt.
A look at Clarke's scorecard suggests that the opportunity was there, but squandered. At 2-under-par through eight holes of Sunday's final round, he then coughed up three strokes beginning at the ninth. He closed in spectacular fashion, however, with an eagle-3 at 18. He carded rounds of 71, 66, 70 and 71.
Gareth Maybin also had a little bit of a chance to make an impact on Sunday, having suffered only four bogeys through the preceding 54 holes. But he took four more on Sunday, plus a double, to tumble into joint-44th place at 286 (70-69-70-77).
Shane Lowry had a difficult weekend. After comfortably making the cut by shooting rounds of 71 and 66, he carded 77 and 75 in the final two rounds to end up tied for 59th place at 289.
