Profile / Bill Elliott / 14 May 2008 / Leave a comment

Open winner's absence from BMW PGA Championship is a big disappointment to Bill Eliott and a whole host of others

Sometimes, you know, I wonder. Wonder about life, the universe and, occasionally, golf. This week I've been wondering about a golfer.

Padraig Harrington has been a credit to his profession ever since he turned professional. Intelligent, affable, polite and talented, he has helped the European Tour grow over the last decade. Like most of them he is a wee bit barking, but nicely so.

If this makes you suspect I like the guy then you're right and it's because I like him that I am so disappointed in his decision not to bother turning up at next week's BMW PGA Championship at Wentworth. He is, of course, playing this week in the Irish Open where he defends the title he won last year at the Adare Club.

Then he skips next week's glittering tournament in Surrey and instead will play the following week in the Wales Open at Celtic Manor. Padraig has sidestepped the PGA Championship before, saying that the course doesn't really suit his game and that the greens at this time of year are a bit dodgy.

This last bleat means that he has felt able to always accept the invitation to play in the World Matchplay Championship in October when he thinks the greens are fine, the course suddenly suits him a bit better and, coincidentally, he is guaranteed a big cheque just for turning up.

If you detect some cynicism in my remarks here then you may be correct.

Look, pro golfers are self-employed people, travelling minstrels who can play where they wish, when they wish. It is worth remembering, however, that guys like Harrington would be a lot poorer were it not for the European Tour that offered him the chance to (a) make a living and (b) sharpen his God-given talents.

For the serious men who run the European Tour the PGA Championship is the biggest deal of their year. It is a showcase event with lots of money available and lots of sponsors invited along to see just how well they can put on a show. BMW themselves are a brilliant sponsor and deserve the best that the Tour can provide.

This year they will have a terrific field, one that contains the likes of the US Open champ Angel Cabrera, the reigning European No.1 Justin Rose and most of the other name players who regard Europe as some kind of home. Yet the Open champion will be off somewhere practising this and fiddling about with that.

His additional reason for not turning up this time is that he is now concentrating on the majors and that his cunning plan is to play just two events in the three weeks leading up to each of these babies. His next target, of course, is the US Open in mid-June. This may indeed be a clever plan but, wait a minute, did he employ this strategy last year when he actually won his first major at Carnoustie? That's right, he didn't.

No, analysed how you like, Harrington's decision to slip round Wentworth and head instead for Wales is as ill-conceived as it can be. I know that the senior European Tour officials are desperately disappointed with him, even if publicly they refuse to put the boot in. As for BMW's money men, this is the sort of thing that may encourage them to put their millions back into their pockets in the near future.

Meanwhile the Irish Open is being staged at a time when Irish golfers are on a big high following three recent wins by Darren Clarke, Damien McGrane and Peter Lawrie. All three will be playing at Adare along with Padraig. What does this mean? Probably that a Swede will be the winner come Sunday. Ah well...

Tags: BMW PGA Championship, Irish Open, Padraig Harrington, Welsh Open