A Master-ly week is what Padraig Harrington has to rediscover

Padraig Harrington’s golf game has been on a slippery slope ever since his third Major victory in 2008.

A miracle is needed if Padraig Harrington is not to miss his first Masters since the turn of the Millennium.

After 14 visits on the trot to Augusta, the three-time Major champion looks certain to miss out on a trip up Magnolia Lane this time round.

The misfiring Irishman has slipped from World No 4 in 2008 off the back of back-to-back Open titles and a US PGA triumph to today’s position of 155 in the Official World Golf Rankings.

Only a win in this week’s Shell Houston Open can secure him a place at the year’s opening Major.

If Harrington needs anything to focus his mind he only has to look at 2002 Players Champion, Craig Perks.

Perks, who won the tournament generally accepted as having the strongest field in golf, decided to go ahead back then with an overhaul of his winning swing that produced a 3-2-4 finish.

That had included two sensational chip-ins on 16 and 18 on one of the most difficult three finishing holes in the game.

Harrington ditched coaching guru Bob Torrance after three Majors in 13 months. He has been winless since his last one the USPGA in 2008 despite constant tinkering with his swing.

The irony is Perks, now a TV commentator after becoming a paramount example of the old saying: ‘If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it!’, admits he has a lot of sympathy for Harrington.

“Well, it was something that I thought necessary, it had to be done,” he recalls.

“And I think what happened when I did make those changes was I lost the ability to score, to play this game.”

In Perks defence, he was not in Harrington’s league when he made the changes.

“At that time it wasn’t difficult at all for me because when I looked at my statistics at the end of 2002 even though I was 36th on the money list I was 195th in ball striking,” he points out.

“There were only nine guys that hit it worse than I did, so I knew I needed to do something.

“I think the way I went about it was incorrect,” he continues.

“I should have just stuck with a method and made minor changes instead of completely overhauling the whole thing from Day One. Just making little changes and going to something else, instead of starting with the set-up and backswing.

“It wasn’t a bad decision, but the way I approached it, in hindsight, was wrong.”

Most pundits believe Harrington, one of the game’s incessant swing ‘tinkerers’, has been guilty of overkill since leaving Bob Torrance.

But will it work for Harrington?

“Well he is working way harder than any other player on the range on a Sunday,” says Perks.

“The indications are he is on the right track, and his swing is in pretty good shape.”

The $64,000 question is, will Harrington grab a happy ending by securing victory in Houston this week and the ticket to the Masters that would bring?