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From The Golf Channel

By Brian Hewitt

The Champion Golfer of the Year, for the second consecutive Open Championship, is the son of an Irish cop and the pride of Dublin. His name is Padraig Harrington and his smile lit up all of Eire Sunday when he outclassed the field of 156 at Royal Birkdale and outfought the English weather that was dire all week.

Another major. Another terrific story.

“I got my mind in the right place,” Harrington said when it was all over. “And I struck the ball right out of the middle of the bat all day.”

To the doubters, and there were more than a few who believed there would be no life after Tiger Woods in major championships, you were wrong.

Of course any major with Woods in the field is richer for the presence. And when he comes back from his current enforced layoff due to knee surgery, we will hail his return.

But “the game of golf,” as Greg Norman likes to ceaselessly refer to it, did quite nicely at Birkdale without the world’s No. 1 player. There were so many good, new, fresh stories.

The continued insurgence of Anthony Kim. The injured soldiering of Harrington who arrived with a sore wrist. Chris Wood, the 20-year-old English amateur who tied for fifth. Runner-up Ian Poulter’s gritty Sunday 69.

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