Padraig Harrington says he has two weeks left to sort out his swing or else his dreams of a historic British Open treble will bite the dust.

The 37-year-old Irishman took the golfing world by storm last year when he won back-to-back majors at the British Open and US PGA in the space of a few summer weeks.

He took a long time out after that to recuperate and then decided that it was time to go back to school and iron out what he saw as some inconsistencies in his game.

The result has been a dramatic slump in form which has seen a morale-sapping run of missed cuts, the latest of which came at last month's US Open at Bethpage Black in New York's Long Island.

Now he has just the French Open starting here on Thursday at Le Golf National near Versailles and a week back home in Ireland before heading to Turnberry in Scotland and his date with destiny.

Harrington made his breakthrough major win at Carnoustie in 2007 and defended the title at Royal Birkdale last year. A win on the Ayrshire links in two weeks time would make him the first golfer since Australian Peter Thomson in 1956 to score a British Open hat-trick of wins.

The ever-intense Dubliner is unrepentant about his self-style swing tinkering.

"There is a danger, but I have had that since I was 16 years of age. The way I have gone about playing golf for the last 20 years has always been the same," he said.

’I always want to improve’

"I always want to improve. Sometimes you will make short term sacrifices for long term gains. It’s about making me a more consistent player. I am trying to hit the ball better when I am not swinging the club well.

"When I hit the ball well there is no problem but I am trying to make my swing more consistent when I am not hitting it well so that I have a bit more consistency when I am slightly off."

In Harrington's corner is the experience of last year when he went into Royal Birkdale short of form and almost pulled out in the days before the tournament with a wrist injury.

Instead he opted to play and in tough, windy conditions kept himself in contention through the three first days.

He then produced a blistering back nine on Sunday to hold onto the Auld Claret Jug and seal his place as one of the most successful European players of his generation.

That experience, he hopes, will stand him in good stead when he gets to Turnberry which has not hosted The Open since Nick Price's win in 1994, the year before Harrington turned pro.

"The Open is two weeks away so I still believe I will be ready to play and perform," he said.

"I am always an optimist when we are talking about tournaments in the future. I have always been a player who needs to show form, in terms of how I feel about my game before I go and win.

"I need these two weeks to show myself that form to build on. I have often performed well when I haven’t been playing well but I have never come out in a situation when I haven’t been playing well and then I have won straight away. It’s a slow gradual build up for me."

AFP

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