Harrington hopes to make hay while sun is shining

Padraig Harrington sees this week's Barclays tournament as the perfect opportunity to top the PGA Tour money list.

NEW JERSEY // Padraig Harrington sees this week's Barclays tournament and the FedEx Cup play-offs as the perfect opportunity to top the PGA Tour money list. The Irishman's back-to-back majors at the Open Championship and US PGA Championship has opened a debate in golf as to whether he or the world No 1Tiger Woods should win the PGA Tour's Player of the Year award, a title voted for by the players themselves.

Woods made an impressive case for a fourth consecutive award and 10th in total before his season-ending knee surgery, winning four of his first six events in 2008 before claiming the US Open title in sudden death at Torrey Pines playing with cruciate ligament damage in his left knee and a double stress fracture of the tibia in the same leg. Harrington's surge into the reckoning after major victories at Royal Birkdale and Oakland Hills in the last five weeks has sent him to fourth among the PGA Tour money leaders.

"To me there's a great chance of winning the title Player of the Year, as there is of leading the Order of Merit," Harrington said, explaining his motivation for the rest of the season. "I've done it in Europe and it would be very nice to do it in the States. I think that's number one: motivation. "I get one vote and I know who I'll be voting for and that's as far as it goes. I don't need to spend my energy, because it's up to (the media) to generate the press about it.

* Reuters