Tiger and Padraig, Together Again

ATLANTA -- This is as close as the PGA Tour gets to a summer rerun.

Tiger Woods and Padraig Harrington are back again, this time for the final twosome of today's third round of the Tour Championship. For the record, it will be the eighth time this year and the fourth since August they will have shared a pairing.

John Daly spends that much time with one person and he owes alimony.

There is nothing to litigate here.

Harrington could not be happier with the partnership.

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An obvious reason is sharing a tee box with Woods typically means you are playing well. Ireland's three-time major championship winner has done that recently, and certainly continued Friday. A 1-under 69 puts him one shot back of Woods, who leads at 5 under after a 68.

Less easy to explain in regard to Paddy's pairing pleasure is an obvious need to be around stampeding, noisy mobs.

"I like a busier golf course," he said. "I like more people around. I like a bit of motion and noise. There's an ambient noise when you are out there. So no, there's no distraction, not at all. It's harder when there's one person standing there on his own than when there's 10,000 people. I think it's easier."

WHAT DID HE JUST SAY?!!!!

Golfer's are notorious for picking up sounds spy satellites miss. A cracking twig two fairways away has caused golfers to melt down like wax figures under a heat lamp. But Harrington wants to feel the juice. He wants the place to shake, rattle and help roll in a 25-footer.

He'll explain.

Good thing. Nobody else could.

"You know, if there was a brass brand playing behind the tee box, it wouldn't put you off,'' he said. "But if there was one guy standing there on his own, nobody else out on a really quiet day, you could hear him from 100 yards away if he was talking to himself.

"You'd be amazed, where there's a lot going on you see nothing. When there's very little going on, you see a lot. You get into it. There's a bit of adrenaline with it and definitely I've always found it easier to play in a noisy environment than a quite one."

Let's go to the video tape.

Harrington last played with Woods at the PGA Championship, joining the world No. 1 in both the first and second rounds. He shot 68 and 73 and went on to contend for the title before being victimized by a final-round 78 that resulted from one bad hole -- an 8 on a par 3.

Before that, paired with Woods in the final round of the WGC-Bridgestone at Firestone, he shot 72 on the way to finishing second.

"I'm going to have my little rant here,'' Harrington said, accepting the challenge to make his case. "I could never understand at the basketball games why everybody makes noise when they're throwing free throws. If everybody kept quiet, there'd be a lot more pressure than when everybody is waving and cheering.''

Are you like me? Are you thinking golf's next big thing: TaylorMade cow bells?

Actually, Harrington makes sense. Golf can be a lot like politics. Keep you friends close and your chief rivals closer. Maybe playing with Woods does bring its own array of special challenges, but at least you know what's causing them.

"It's always best to be playing and watching the No. 1 guy," Harrington said. "You know, it's always nice to be trying to push him."

Familiarity can be a powerful thing.

Harrington has proven he can stand the heat.

He's convinced himself he loves the circus.

The result is when Woods talks about Harrington, he sounds a little bit like everybody else talking about Woods.

"I know what he's done," Tiger said. "All the years of hard work is paying off. It was a matter of time before he won some big events, and lo and behold, he's won three major championships. Certainly he has put the work in to accomplish that, which is something that we all respect about him.''

Now that's Harrington making some noise.