It appears when you win three of six major championships in golf, people start to care what you say.

Irishman and back-to-back major champion Padraig Harrington spoke with everyone's favorite Irish light heavyweight boxer, Kenny Egan, about concentration, motivation and any other term I learned watching "Remember the Titans."

"He came to my house and basically was talking about how to peak, how to go to a big-time event and produce your best performance," Harrington said Tuesday at The Barclays. "He was obviously a very talented competitor himself and knew what to do, but was feeling that he was slightly underachieving at the big events."

The talk apparently helped, as Egan advanced to the medal round on Tuesday in Beijing.

"The only way to learn experience without actually going through it yourself is learn from somebody else," Harrington said. "Kenny was not afraid to ask a couple of people to make the contact with me. And I love to talk, so I was more than obliging."

I love Padraig, but picturing him motivate someone is just humor in my head. I just keep thinking about how many "ehhhs" he'd spit out in a single sentence.

We will see how great it actually pays off on Friday, as Egan pairs up against Britain's Tony Jeffries in the semifinals.

As the only remaining person on the planet to not weigh in on Sergio Garcia's somewhat disappointing professional career, it's good to finally get Jack Nicklaus' thoughts on this very important matter.

Sergio has a reputation for crying like a little baby when things don't go his way, but apparently he had matured this season. After winning The Players Championship in May, he was thisclose to winning the PGA Championship two weeks ago, which would've taken his name off the "greatest players never to win a major" list. Didn't happen -- Padraig Harrington stuck it to Sergio ... again -- but unlike previous letdowns, Garcia handled the loss with humility and aplomb (sorta).

Anyway, Nicklaus, taking time out from another course opening, offered his thoughts on the matter:

"Sergio is a good player, but how do you continue to do what he does? Watson did it, but Watson did it at a young age-two U.S. Opens and a PGA, or two PGAs and a U.S. Open." (He was referring to tournaments Watson could have won but didn't.) ...

"You know, Watson did it; Sergio has not been able to do it. He is very, very talented. When he learns to do that-if and when he learns that, and I don't know whether he will or not--he will get to that level."

Before Tiger Woods hobbled off into the sunset, the PGA Tour was experiencing some of its best ratings. In fact, Sunday's round of the U.S. Open drew more viewers (10.0/20) than the competing NBA Finals Game 5 (9.0/16). But everything went to hell as soon as Woods announced he'd be taking a sabbatical the rest of the 2008 season.

Since [the U.S. Open], however, golf's TV ratings have fallen into the abyss. Despite Padraig Harrington's thrilling victory on Sunday at Oakland Hills, the overnight rating for the PGA Championship was 3.0, down 55% from last year's final round at Southern Hills - an event won by (surely you recall) Woods.

This is all very troubling because it's not like the British Open and PGA Championships were ho-hum affairs won in mind-numbingly boring fashion. On Sunday at Royal Birkdale, Harrington played inspired golf on the back nine on his way to back-to-back Claret Jugs.

And last week, Sergio Garcia had a chance to win his first major before, you guessed it, Harrington toughed his way around the course to win back-to-back majors, which seems like a pretty big story.

Maybe, but not to the casual fans who tune in to see Eldrick, even if he's in 20th place, 10 shots off the lead.

There's no easy solution to this problem, but at some point PGA Tour commissioner Tim Finchem is going to have to plan for the eventuality that Tiger Woods will retire. I would suggest that maybe Phil Mickelson would finally get his chance to shine, but this summer proves that Tiger's got nothing to do with how he plays.

Phil Mickelson was the favorite heading into the PGA Championship probably because he's the world's second-best player (well, before yesterday, anyway), has won two of his three majors at the event, and, really, who else had a better shot?

It wouldn't have surprised me if Lefty won the whole thing, but I also remember thinking that he could just as easily miss the cut. Well, he made it to the weekend, but couldn't make a run, and ended up finishing tied for seventh. All in all, a solid showing, but not really all that exciting, at least if you're CBS and concerned with ratings.

But Crowne Plaza, which has blanketed the airwaves with a Philbert-centric ad campaign, did manage to keep Mickelson's mug on teevee screens even as the network focused on Padraig Harrington and Sergio Garcia. And of all the spots, this is easily the funniest (although, there is something to be said for David Feherty asking Lefty if he won the 2006 U.S. Open):



Ditto. Hilarious.

Normally, the PGA Championship is the major reserved for a newbie. They call it "Glory's Last Shot" because seven of the last 14 have been first time winners. Normally the one that bucks that trend is Elderick Woods, who, unbeknownst to the golf world, has handed the title of major champion king to an Irishman with a quirky smile.

Oakland Hills gave us everything, from floods to hole-in-ones to a marathon finish that ended with a putt you almost knew had to fall. Here are the winners and losers from a great week of golf at the year's final major.

Winners

• Padraig Harrington -- Wait, didn't I just write one of these? Harrington has now won three of the last six majors championships and has truly earned the nickname "Back Nine." A 32 at the British a month ago and a 32 on the closing stretch yesterday has Padraig with as many majors as Phil Mickelson, Ernie Els and Vijay Singh. Think he's taken advantage of the Woods layoff?

I spent most of my Sunday afternoon waiting for Sergio Garcia to implode. In fact, because of my awesome divinatory powers, I sent the Internet's golf pro, Shane Bacon, the following IM as Garcia and Padraig Harrington started the final nine during yesterday's PGA Championship:

i'm going to go ahead and call it: paddy back-to-back. sergio will double-bogey coming in and fall apart...

Didn't quite happen like that; in fact, Garcia played about as well as he could have. Harrington, like he did less than a month ago at Royal Birkdale, just wasn't going to lose, and that had more to do with the golfer formerly known as El Niño missing out on his first major than it did with Paddy going back-to-back.

But a bizarre thing happened after the round; instead of blaming, well, everybody, Garcia sounded more like a guy who appreciated the circumstances than one eager to start pointing fingers for his misfortune.

Yesterday, the CBS announcers couldn't quit talking about how far Sergio had come mentally; I agree, although I don't think it required blanket coverage. I mean, the guy is 28 years old, it's probably time.

As Sergio Garcia and Padraig Harrington made the turn in the final round of today's PGA Championship, I was certain that whoever ended up winning the thing would be the favorite to win the PGA Player of the Year award.

Either player would seem like a no-brainer candidate (PGA and Players titles for Sergio, or back-to-back majors for Harrington), but Tiger Woods, hobbled since working miracles at the U.S. Open, is always lurking.

Now, though, after Paddy got the best of Sergio (again ... hello, Carnoustie, '07!), he's the obvious choice, right? I mean, there's no way Tiger wins the POY, (more feebly this time) right?

Let's see: Harrington has six top-5s -- including two majors -- in 12 starts. That's Kenny Perry territory there, folks. Eldrick, in six starts, had four wins (including that U.S. Open), a second and a fifth. He's also first in FedEx Cup points (Paddy is 10th), not to mention his standing as the world's best golfer.

So maybe there still is a case that he's deserving of the honor. Fine. I wouldn't vote for him, but I suppose rationale people can agree that Tiger's in the conversation. What is hard to dispute, however, is that Harrington is the second-best player on the planet over the last month.

And Sergio, for all his unclutch putting and "woe is me" attitude, is all growned up, apparently. He didn't make excuses after today's round, and, frankly, played some pretty inspired golf. He's still heading the tired-but-oddly-still-talked-about "best guy to never win a major" bracket, but not for long. So heads-up, Adam Scott.

I'm not sure if the word clutch really justifies what just happened at Oakland Hills.

On the back nine of a major for the second consecutive time, Irishman and constant lip bitter Padraig Harrington fired another 32 that included one of the better putts you'll ever see to capture the PGA Championship.

Harrington had never finished in the top-10 at a PGA, but that all changed with consecutive 66s on a marathon day in Michigan, topping Sergio Garcia and Ben Curtis by two shots.

The cyst of the course at Oakland Hills is 16, 17 and 18, and Harrington made putts on those three that you can only dream about. First came the 16th, where Padraig hit an uncharacteristicly bad iron shot from the fairway, leaving himself a 15-footer for par. Dead center there was strike one. Next came the par-3 17th, where he hit one of the better shots of the day and rolled that right in the heart for birdie. Strike two. Finally, the par-4 18th, that had yielded just one birdie all day, and that was a holed shot from Steve Flesch. A bad drive, an even worse fairway bunker shot followed up with a solid iron shot to 15-feet left him a par putt he cashed for the win. Strike three, Sergio's out.

It seems pretty easy, but Padraig Harrington might start sporting the nickname "Back Nine" if he can pull out this PGA Championship.

After a tremendous back nine 32 on Sunday to win his second British Open, he's singing that same song again, making three birdies in his first four holes on the back nine at Oakland Hills to land in a tie for the lead with Sergio Garcia.

Maybe not much of a dominate golfer to most a year ago, this would be his third major championship in the last six, a stat reserved only for that Tiger fellow up until now.

What initially looked like a ho-hum major has turned into a shootout between two of the best golfers in the world. With Ben Curtis lurking just a shot back, we could be looking at playoff city. If you're not near a television, stand up, leave work and head to the nearest pub. It's Sunday Funday with some great golf to boot.

Greg Norman was the most improbable story during last week's British Open; the former two-time winner, now 53, led the whole thing heading into the final round, before the weather, age and Padraig Harrington's lights-out back nine all conspired against him.

Perhaps second only to Norman's unlikely showing was that of David Duval, the 2001 Open Champion and one of golf's best young players at the turn of the century who fell off the grid in recent years. He emerged at Royal Birkdale, and sandwiched rounds of 73, 69 and 71 around an ugly Saturday 83 that basically eliminated him from contention.

But Duval, who has played in 13 PGA events this season (making just two cuts), will tee it up at the Reno-Tahoe Open next week. Shockingly, he thinks Michelle Wie, playing the event on a sponsor's exemption, would be better off honing her game against women, but understands the economics of it all.

"You're in or you're not in. It's pretty simple," Duval said. "Whether I agree if she should be playing - I think she would be better off on the Futures Tour competing against women - is neither here nor there. (Tournament director) Michael Stearns thinks she can bring people in, and that's his job. If some guy needs a spot in the field, chances are he's not going to sell any tickets. She might add 2,000."