Padraig Harrington: Will You Be Still Be Playing At Bernhard Langer’s Age?

Padraig Harrington spoke to the media ahead of the US Senior Open, where he was asked:

-When you are Bernhard Langer’s age, do you think you will still be playing or will you be coaching?

I love playing I love playing I you know I think I went through that phase five six years ago where I was burnt out a golf I I did some teaching I did some coaching H I did some commentary and you know I enjoyed doing both of those things commentary and the and and the and the coaching but then I realized I actually still like playing so if I can play when I’m 67 years of age I see myself trying to play yeah I I I I don’t think I don’t think I’d make a great coach when it comes to elite players I don’t think if you turned around and gave me Pros it’s funny because I I get a significant number of Pros now who come to me younger pros and even some of the guys in the looking you know what do you think and like I’m not great with with Elite swings because I kind of go well I’m I’m very old school with that I said well you can hit that shot so you know that’s not what’s wrong your your mental game is wrong so whenever I get a good player I actually go back to focusing on the mental game and the short game and and and don’t really interfere too much with golf swings I don’t think I know you you might think I work on my golf swing a lot but I actually don’t think the answer is in the golf swing for professionals we’ve already met the minimum standard H the minimum threshold standard to be a good Pro so it’s for us it’s all about our confidence our mental game how we see ourselves on the golf course how we see ourselves against the field uh just generally the Comfort level like one of the things to fascinates me about my own career and I I see it in other people and I see it when they have a run I’m more likely to hold if you give me a 10-footer this week I’m more likely to hold it this week than I would be if I was playing in the PJ Tour event that’s just bizarrely stupid but that’s the case because here you know that 10 footer on Thursday or Friday I hopefully I’m not you know I’m not really looking over my shoulder at the cut line at that stage whereas if I’m not the usj a couple of weeks ago every 10 footer is like you know do or die because if I miss it oh I’m going to miss the cut so it’s amazing how attitude and comfort zone and where you believe you where you believe you stand in a field can help you perform and it’s nothing to do with the physical side it’s just your beliefs so uh you know the champion s has really shown that up to me I I kind of knew it all along but it’s shown it even more uh like I can think of several players I remember when you know nameing players but I remember when DJ was on his great run you know he was holding those 10 and 12 foot puts all the time for birdies and and the reason being is if he missed one he knew he had another 12 foter coming up in the next for birdie so it’s not very hard to hold the first one and if you bogey this hold knew he was making another birdie so it’s amazing how we have this sort of 18mon 2year period where we’re we just get into a zone that you know good things are happening and because they’re happening we actually keeps happening and uh I so the psychology of the game is more of an interest if if I went into coaching I would become a psychologist not a not a golf coach is that simple answer I don’t know drifted off the answer here I’m ra absolutely rambling