Padraig Harrington told off his caddie yesterday - for being too honest.

The Dubliner couldn't understand why he was ranked a lowly 82nd in the driving distance statistics until he grilled Ulster bagman Dave McNeilly.

Then he discovered that McNeilly had been giving the statisticians the exact yardage of his drives when rivals had been massaging the numbers.

Explained Harrington: "I am fifth longest off the tee in the Masters and the US Open and then I look at the stats and I am languishing down around the 100 mark.

"I started quizzing Dave and discovered that when they moved a tee box up a few yards he was subtracting that off my drive, which is correct.

"The problem is that the other caddies weren't doing the same thing. In fact, they normally add on a few yards and he was taking them off."

If a tee is moved 30 yards, the statisticians normally subtract 30 yards from the distance recorded of the Reuters Performance Data.

Unfortunately for Harrington, his caddie was giving the numbers men the adjusted distance.

But it isn't affecting Harrington's his rise up the Order of Merit and
after his runners up spot at the K Club last year, he's confident that he has moved his game up another notch.

"I'll have been working with Bob Torrance for four years next week and I feel that my short game is what is going to make the difference now," he revealed.

But now that he is hitting more greens in regulation, Harrington's short game is not as sharp as it once was.

"Those chances to chip and putt are so much more important now because I am nearer to the top of the leaderboard. They make a bigger difference now that before and if I miss it can be costly."

He added: "The problem is that I have so many different things to work but I don't have the time to do everything. I'll never be happy"

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© Brian Keogh 2002

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