He says, "Wow, there's another good young kid and the tour is just going to eat him up."
As good as that young player might be?
"After a while, he's going to have the same fears that the rest of us have out here," Harrington said. ". . . He's going to have to deal with missing cuts, when every week he turned up in college, he nearly won the tournament."
Harrington says motivation is now the biggest driver in his bag. Lose that and you lose everything.
Motivation keeps him going during golf's mind-numbing twists and turns.
Harrington must have thought he was back two weeks ago when he shot 17 under par for a top-10 finish at the Phoenix Open. He yukked it up with the rowdy fans, kicking a football into the grandstands on TPC Scottsdale's par-three 16th hole.
But then, last week, he missed the cut at Pebble Beach after rounds of 72-71-72.
Golf, he knows, is impossible to conquer or defuse.
He enters play this week on a major-ready course he says perfectly fits his eye.
Harrington thinks Riviera could stage a U.S. Open with a month's lead time if emergency orders came through tomorrow from the USGA.
"The course is big enough and strong enough that it can dictate the scores to the players at times," Harrington said.
Yet, for all the love, Harrington isn't exactly threatening Ben Hogan for Riviera supremacy. After finishing seventh and tied for third on his first two trips, Harrington missed the cut twice and finished 55th and 44th the last two years.
Harrington attributes his problems at Riviera to the event's falling so early in the PGA Tour season.
"You just make mental errors, at times you mis-club, you do a few silly things that maybe in the middle of the season you wouldn't do," Harrington said.
Unlike McIlroy and Woods, the world's top two golfers, Harrington is here to attack the kikuyu grass.
"It's completely mental at the end of the day," Harrington said of his sport.
That is golf's one great, redeeming constant: There's always another day.
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