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By Melanie Hauser
PGATOUR.com Correspondent

HARRISON, N.Y. -- Eight days.

Doesn't seem like much when you're talking about a vacation. Or just a break from your yearly grind.

But for Padraig Harrington? It was all but unthinkable.

The champion golfer of the year didn't touch a golf club for eight days. No practice. No playing. No tinkering.

If he glanced toward his golf bag? We didn't go there.

Padraig Harrington made The Open Championship his first major. (Getty Images)

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• Harrington's profile • Harrington's major win • Video: Harrington interview, Barclays2007 • Video: Harrington wins 2005 Barclays

Bottom line is the man who was hugging the Claret Jug after 76 holes at Carnoustie needed a break before the FedExCup commenced, so he took one. Headed out of Southern Hills to wring out the sweat and sheer exhaustion that goes with winning your first major and jumping quickly into playing the next.

"It's the longest break I've ever taken in season, and probably the longest break I've ever taken without hitting a golf ball,'' he said. "I needed it. So I'm hoping that I'm going to be reasonably fresh this week and for the next three weeks. It is an issue. It definitely is an issue.''

Yes, golf is entering the stretch run, starting this week at Westchester Country Club, host to the first-ever FedExCup playoff event -- The Barclays. A site where, we might add, Harrington and Rory Sabbatini lost a playoff to Sergio Garcia in 2004.

That tournament, however, was played in steamy June. So what will August bring? No one's sure.

Tuesday's weather was reminiscent of Harrington's week at Carnoustie with steady rain and temperatures in the high 50s. But the front was due to move through, and temperatures would slide up to the high 80s by the weekend.

"I don't know if I'll play well at The Barclays in August, because now it's become certainly a slightly different event, so you might have a different set of guys playing well,'' Harrington said. "We could go in and talk about biorhythms and things like this, but who knows why we play well at certain times of the year. But it's certainly a factor for golfers.''

As is Tiger Woods, whose absence here is still a presence.

"Of all of the people that's in a golf tournament, when I finish my round of golf, I will look to see what Tiger Woods has shot,'' he said. " You know, and he does have that presence in a golf tournament that everybody worries about what Tiger Woods is doing... I would consider him as good as could be in terms of just worrying about what I'm doing, but certainly he provides an added distraction in an event.''

That he's not here this week? Harrington said it's his choice. Not many top players often play more than three events in a row -- not even Harrington, who once played 10 in a row his second season the European Tour -- and Tiger, after all, is leading the FedExCup.

"Somebody in my position, I have to win maybe two out of four events, so I'd better take my chances and play all four,'' Harrington said. "He probably only needs to put in one good performance. So he's in a position that he can take a week off and still go and win this thing. The rest of us don't have that luxury.''

Harrington has always been one of the game's best, but he took it to the next level with his Open Championship. He struggled after the death of his father in 2005 but entered 2007 off a strong European Ryder Cup win and with five top 10s in majors. He tied for seventh at the Masters in April then won at Carnoustie after hitting into the Barry Burn twice on the 72nd hole. The playoff? It wasn't close. Harrington birdied the first hole, Garcia bogeyed and never caught back up.

Ireland went crazy. Europe was thrilled with its first homegrown champ in eight years. And Harrington rode the wave. Until the last two rounds at Southern Hills where a 72-74 took him from contention to tie for 42nd.

The reason? The microwavable heat with temperatures in triple digits and, well, just getting tired. No adrenalin, no energy.

"On the Sunday, I could see it,'' he said. "I could see it, so I didn't fight it. I actually, you know, it wasn't something I could see in my whole body and focus and concentration, I just was not with it. ''

So, he took those eight long days off.

Harrington is so grounded, you can't see him changing after winning a major. Yet we -- and he -- knows his mindset already has. While he's always worked hard on his game -- teacher Bob Torrance wouldn't have it any other way -- he can now point more toward those four weeks each year. He just has to rein himself in and not start wishing there was a major every week.

"I can say, I can tell you it's seven months until the next major,'' he said. "After winning one, your appetite, it's nearly only for majors, because that's a problem because I have a lot of other events to play. They are all big, serious events in their own right, and I want to be out there competing in each event for the sake of that event.

"...So having won one, it could be very easy to sort of say, well, there's only major golf. And I have to be careful to remain focused on my other goals and not just wait around, as I say, seven months for the Masters.''

The current goal? The FedExCup. And the best news for him, other than that eight-day rest? No Ryder Cup the week after this four-tournament stretch. This year, it's the Presidents Cup. Next year, he'll have five in a row.

"That will be tough. You know, that will be a big ask, a big take from any player who plays in all five events,'' he said.

"You know, the great thing about the Ryder Cup is when you play a Ryder Cup, and it finishes on a Sunday, you're so happy you don't have to play a Ryder Cup the next day or the next year... the week will play out, no one is sure. The field is simply walking into uncharted territory. No one knows how the courses will play, whether playing to survive not just the cut but to the next tournament will impact play or how this inaugural playoff will shake down. Nor where it fits in the big picture.

"It will take a while for it to build up. You know, the majors were not majors when they were first run. They only became majors,'' Harrington said.

"The FedExCup, it's a start in the right direction, there's no question of that. They are moving in the right direction trying to make something -- it is more of a made-for-TV spectacular, but it is moving in the right direction... we'll give it a few years, and I think it will get there. ''