Harrington relishing break

Harrington: Early exit

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Padraig Harrington has said he is looking forward to a badly needed break following his early exit at The Barclays on Friday.

Victories in The Open and US PGA Championships just four weeks apart had clearly taken their toll on the world number three as exhaustion finally caught up with him in New Jersey.

A second-round, two-over-par 73 at Ridgewood Country Club left Harrington three over for the tournament, two shots in deficit of the halfway cut.

He said: "I was tired. I tried hard but I was struggling at times. You've got to expect it even though I would have liked to have done better.

"A couple of things didn't quite go my way and that happens when you're not quite on top of your game.

"You get slightly out with your clubbing and there were a couple of bad three putts but at the end of the day I would definitely put it down to mental tardiness rather than anything else.

"You never like missing cuts, you don't want to do that. But it is really a knock-on from the last couple of weeks and I think I'd rather take two wins and a missed cut."

Stronger

The Irishman can look forward to a well-earned rest as America celebrates Labor Day holiday weekend before the Deutsche Bank Championship at TPC Boston next Friday.

Harrington added: "There's no doubt that a couple of days' rest will do me more good than playing a couple more rounds here at the back of the field, that's for sure.

"And it's a long week next week so I'm sort of happy to have the break. Hopefully I'll come out stronger.

"There was always going to be a little bit of a fall-off when you do things like that but I struggled and so I was a little bit disappointed in the end.

"I'm going to take it easy in the next six days now, do some practice on my short game - the long game's very good, I'm very happy with that.

"So maybe do things nice and quietly over the next week, not overdo anything."