Rory McIlroy after winning the 2011 US Open. (Image: Getty)
Padraig Harrington enjoyed a superb playing career that yielded three major wins and six appearances, but he can still pinpoint the week where derailed him. The Irishman cemented cult hero status in his homeland when in 2008, he successfully defended before going on to capture the US PGA in the same year.
Heading into the 2011 campaign, he was still going strong as he headed into the US Open as one of the pre-tournament favourites.
Rival Adam Scott certainly thought so, the Australian giving a now infamous press conference where he said: “You might as well go home. Padraig Harrington is winning this.”
However, a very different narrative played out. Rather than the tournament signifying Harrington’s revitalisation, it became the moment when McIlroy really announced himself to the world.
The Northern Irishman had blown a chance to win the earlier that year, but there was no sign of nerves this time around. He fired rounds of 66, 68 and 69 to set a US Open record for the lowest score for 72 holes at 268, finishing eight clear of runner-up Jason Day.
A toiling Harrington could only finish five-over-par at the Congressional Country Club, enough for a tie in 45th place, and admits the experience still haunts him. “Rory broke me in 2011,” he told the Cookie Jar Golf podcast
Padraig Harrington won three major titles. (Image: Getty)
“He broke everybody, but I was the best player. That’s what I believed. In my head, I’m thinking ‘I am the best player. I’ve won three majors just recently. I’m in great form. I prepared right’.
“I go into this tournament and Rory does something that I can’t compete with. Wipes the floor with everyone. Like we’re all the same. He’s just blown us all away.”
Harrington, who skippered McIlroy in Team Europe’s 2021 Ryder Cup defeat in Wisconsin, revealed that he tried to convince himself afterwards he could still compete with the best. But he admitted the ordeal left him with self-doubt for the remainder of his career.
“So when Tiger Woods was doing that in the early 2000s, I was only on my way up. This is me at my best (in 2011) and I don’t think I can compete with him. In 2008, I was not looking over my shoulder. I was only concerned about me.
“But from 2011 onwards, I’m now thinking I’m not good enough. I need to be a better version of me in order to compete with Rory McIlroy.”
McIlroy would go on to surpass Harrington’s haul in 2014 when his second US PGA title secured his fourth major win. However, more than a decade on he’s still searching for his fifth, following .