Padraig Harrington impressed by Charlie Woods after Tiger teaming
Padraig Harrington knows all about the introduction of a son to the sporting world. Patrick, then three and a half, asked if ladybirds could be placed in the Claret Jug after daddy won the Open in 2007.
Harrington was in the field as Tiger Woods played alongside his son, Charlie, at December’s PNC Championship. To some, Woods was needlessly exposing his 11-year-old to the spotlight. Harrington, though, looked on with admiration. “I just think Charlie was happy,” Harrington said. “He was happy doing what he wanted to do. I don’t believe for a second that there was anything but sheer enjoyment and enthusiasm.
“He’s very respectful around his elders. When he was in that environment, you would have seen a little bit of banter between him and Justin Thomas but with the other guys, you could just see it; that he’s an 11-year-old kid looking up to them. He really seems to be in a great place in terms of his personality. He loves golf but he’s not getting ahead of himself in any shape or form. He’s just a kid.”
In Harrington’s mind, Charlie Woods was inevitably going to have to deal with high attention levels regardless of a pre-Christmas appearance in Orlando. “Clearly he loves golf,” Harrington said. “Because he’s chosen to go down that road, there’s going to be a huge amount of focus on him and whether he was in that tournament or not, there’s videos of him playing mini-events and things like that.
“It probably was an appropriate way to bring him out, lead him out into the limelight. He’s going to be there. You can’t hide him from it. That wouldn’t be a normal life, either. You have to understand that just like being a professional golfer: ‘If I want to be successful, I have to accept the level of fame that goes with it.’ Most people think ‘Oh, well, fame is good.’ What I mean by fame is whatever goes with fame. If you’re not prepared to accept that, you won’t be very good as a professional golfer. They go hand-in-hand.”
Harrington, who will compete in the Dubai Desert Classic that starts on Thursday, remains confident his European Ryder Cup captaincy in September will be played against a familiar, pre-Covid backdrop. “If it does go ahead with full [numbers of] spectators and things like that, it will be a seriously, seriously big party,” he said. “The relief for people to get out there and go to a sporting event of that magnitude will be palpable.”