the scene of Harrington's Mr Cool triumph

Jack Nicklaus is the reputed author of the well-worn comment that the Open Championship venues get worse the further south one goes.

This was naturally taken as a jibe at Royal St George's in Sandwich, where Nicklaus once carded an 81 and from where one can see the north of France on a clear day.

But the Irish contingent fare pretty well south of Hadrian's Wall. Of the six Open Championships that have yielded an Irish winner, only one of them was played in Scotland.

That was in Carnoustie, the charmless brute of a course on the east coast of Scotland, where Harrington clambered past a sour and begrudging Sergio Garcia in 2007 to win Ireland's first major since Fred Daly.

Of the others, Shane Lowry's Open Championship victory came in Ireland at Royal Portrush in 2019. A gable wall in the town has since been adorned with a mural of him with the Claret Jug. This didn't stop him from exclaiming "f**k this place" at a moment of high frustration when the Open returned there last summer.

The other four Irish victories came in dear old Ing-er-land. Daly and Rory McIlroy both won in Hoylake. A 42-year-old Darren Clarke won in the aforementioned Sandwich.

And then there was Harrington going back-to-back at Birkdale in 2008, when he reeled in poor Greg Norman.

It was certainly an object lesson in what getting one under your belt can do for a golfer.

Having crawled over the line in a ludicrously nervy finale in '07, Harrington practically moonwalked to the title the following year.

He almost didn't play at all. The defending champion had injured his wrist after trying a one-handed Happy Gilmore into his impact bag - as you do.

"If it wasn't the Open, I would have pulled out. I wouldn't be here," Harrington told reporters.

Helpfully, it was blowing a gale around Birkdale for that week, taking much of the Floridian contingent out of the reckoning. Dodgy wrist notwithstanding, Stackstown's finest wasn't to be so easily deterred.

There had been a tradition of Irish success at the Southport course. Jimmy Bruen had become the first ever Irish winner of the Amateur Championship at Birkdale in 1946, beating American Robert Sweeny Jr in the final. Donegal's Brian McElhinney did likewise at the same course in 2005, dispatching Scotland's John Gallagher 5&4 in the final.

In that sense, the omens were good.

After lashing a lob wedge out of a dense thicket of rough on Day 1, Harrington discovered, to his surprise, that his wrist had healed itself. A two-under-par 68 on Friday moved him into contention.

The late noughties in the Open Championship were a period of old boy charges.

Tom Watson in 2009 is by far the most famous and most agonising of these. But the year before, Norman was the 54-hole leader.

He had just gotten married to tennis great Chris Evert, who traipsed around among the galleries that week.

The Shark was presumed to be semi-retired and hadn't contended seriously at a major since the 1999 Masters but amid the carnage of the opening three days, the 53-year old Aussie suddenly started swinging like it was 1993 again.

He was one stroke behind KJ Choi at the midway point, with Harrington two strokes further back. Norman wasn't the only blast from the past on fire that week, with David Duval part of the cohort on +2 alongside Harrington.

As the weather worsened on Saturday, Norman dug in to shoot a two-over 72, giving him a two-stroke lead from Harrington and Choi. Crucially, the Dubliner was in the final pairing alongside Norman.

In his Chronicles documentary with the R&A, Harrington said he was in fear that "the golfing Gods were going to give Greg Norman one for the road... I was so worried that destiny was giving Greg Norman one last major."

The late Peter Alliss was less convinced that the Gods were working towards this end.

"My heart says Norman, my head says Harrington," the legendary commentator sighed as the final pair set off from the first tee box.

In comparison to 12 months earlier, Sunday, 20 July 2008 was pretty free of drama.

Norman had rolled back the years in giving himself a Saturday evening lead at a major. Then, he rolled back the years some more by duly imploding on the Sunday.

Harrington was already in the lead from the third hole after Norman began with three successive bogeys. The Australian briefly regained the lead at the turn after Harrington suffered a wobble at the end of the front nine. But it was short-lived and by the 13th, Norman was no longer even Harrington's closest challenger.

That honour went to Ian Poulter, who made a late surge to claim second on his own. Harrington played the last six holes in four-under, a stunning finish on a week when scoring was incredibly difficult.

The tournament was sealed after he bombed a fairway wood into a few feet on the par-five 17th.

In real-time, it had looked like a needless risk given that he led by two strokes from Ian Poulter, who was already kicking his heels in the clubhouse.

It would have been a hard one to explain away had he made a mess of the shot. In an alternate timeline, it might have been remembered as a piece of Van de Veldian fecklessness.

In this timeline, Harrington eagled the hole, won the tournament and it has gone down as one of the all-time great shots.

As a smiling Harrington and his caddie Ronan Flood basked in the acclaim of the crowd, the Beeb treated us to a close-up of the tricolour, which was flickering triumphantly in the breeze. All that was missing were the horn sounds from the start of Mise Éire.

Coming down the last was a night and day difference from the year before.

"He's just a show-off," Alliss proclaimed airily as Harrington clipped his approach in close at the 72nd.

"Carnoustie will forever be so exciting because it was my first major," Harrington reflected on the Chronicles documentary.

"But there was always something wanting afterwards. I had messed up the 72nd hole. There was questions whether I should have won the tournament or deserved to win the tournament playing the hole the way I did. Birkdale extinguished all that."

His +3 score was sufficient to win by four strokes. He remains the last over par winner of the Open Championship.

Less than a month later, he won back-to-back majors at the PGA Championship in Oakland Hills, sickening Garcia for the second year in succession.

He was the first European-born winner of the PGA since 1930. The previous one - Scotsman Tommy Armour - had lost the sight in his left eye during the First World War.

It capped off a remarkable summer for Harrington, a month before the Irish economy collapsed. He's currently collecting senior major titles at a rate of knots, though that was it for his major haul at the top level.

The Celtic Tiger was about to die a spectacular death but Irish golf's golden age was only beginning.

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