Padraig Harrington will end a well-deserved break after his PGA Championship victory nine days ago to resume his pursuit of golf’s big prizes in this week’s Barclays Classic.
The Irishman, who has won three majors after adding the PGA crown to his second successive British Open victory last month, said on Tuesday he would have liked another week off after house-hunting with his family in North Carolina.
However, the PGA Tour’s FedExCup playoffs begin at Ridgewood Country Club on Thursday and the stakes are high.
“There’s a great chance of winning the title Player of the Year, as in leading the (European) order of merit,” said the 36-year-old Harrington. “I think that’s number one motivation.
“After that, they are all good tournaments and you want to win those, and obviously I would have one eye on the world rankings, so that would be a definite motivation in it.”
Harrington, who ranks third in the world behind number one Tiger Woods and Phil Mickelson, is among 136 players from 15 countries playing in the opening event of the FedExCup series, where the overall points leader collects a $10 million prize.
Last year, most of the bonus won by FedExCup champion Tiger Woods came as a deferred payment. This year the playoffs winner will pocket $9 million in cash with $1 million deferred.
The $7-million Barclays, with a top prize of $1.26 million, is the first of four FedExCup tournaments.
The top 120 on the points list following this week’s event qualify for the Deutsche Bank Championship starting on August 29 in Boston. Seventy players advance to the BMW Championship in St Louis on September 4 and the leading 30 players go on to the Tour Championship finale, staring on September 25, in Atlanta.
Series leader Woods, whose season ended in June with reconstructive knee surgery, is not back to defend his FedExCup crown.
The top points earners going in are Americans Kenny Perry (99,500) and Mickelson (99,250), followed by Harrington (99,000) and 23-year-old American Anthony Kim (98,750).
The winner of the Barclays gets 11,000 points, the runner-up 7,400 and the 10th-place finisher 3,350, with points awarded down to 90 places.
The field includes Steve Stricker, who won the Barclays by two strokes over South Korean K.J. Choi last year.
This year’s Barclays tournament has moved venues from Westchester Country Club to Ridgewood, half an hour’s drive across the Hudson River from Manhattan.
Ridgewood, which hosted the 2001 Senior PGA (won by Tom Watson) and the 1990 U.S. Senior Open (won by Lee Trevino), is a 7,319-yard layout featuring the best 18 holes from the club’s three A.W. Tillinghast-designed nine-hole courses.
One pivotal hole could be the drivable 291-yard, par-four fifth, named “Five and Dime” by old-time members, who played it with a five-iron off the tee and a 10-iron (wedge) into the narrow, elevated green guarded by deep bunkers.
