- FedExCup Points: 50,000
- Purse: $1.26 million
- Winning Share: $1,260,000
- Yards: 7,154
PGATOUR.com Chief of Correspondents
ATLANTA -- Padraig Harrington placed a late-night call to his travel agent on Sunday evening.
He had planned to play in THE TOUR Championship presented by Coca-Cola in this week. The way the final round of the BMW Championship was unfolding, though, he wasn't totally sure he would get to make the trip from Ireland.
Harrington had started the third leg of the PGA TOUR Playoffs for the FedExCup in relative safety, ranked 25th in the standings. The top 30 at the end of the tournament at Cog Hill would make the field for the finale at East Lake.
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The British Open champion needed a break, though, and he had opted not to play in the BMW Championship. Harrington expected to lose a couple of spots in the standings, as a result. But he didn't think he'd be the last man standing when the tournament ended.
Jonathan Byrd, who ranked 30th, was playing well, though. He held a share of the lead after the first two rounds and was sixth entering the final round. Byrd had moved up to 25th -- Harrington's spot -- when the BMW Championship was over.
Byrd wasn't the only one playing well at Cog Hill, either. Stewart Cink's climb from 32nd to 24th, Tim Clark's move from No. 33 to No. 27 and Camilo Villegas' six-spot leap to 28th put Harrington on the bubble during the final round.
"I was pretty confident I was going to make it all the way through but it was closer than I thought," Harrington admitted after he picked up his courtesy car Monday evening.
"I expected a couple of players to pass me from well behind, if you had of told me that Luke Donald, Jerry Kelly and Arron Oberholser (all of whom dropped out of the top 30) weren't going to pass me, I would've thought with certainty I was going to finish 28th, something like that.
"I was surprised that with none of those passing me, I did go back as far as I did."
Harrington said he checked the projected standings several times on his computer before he felt secure enough to confirm his airline flight at around 11 p.m. Dublin- time.
"It was very good for me to have a week off," he said. "I needed it. Hopefully, I'll be ready to play this week."
Harrington, whose work ethic rivals that of Vijay Singh, was one of the first players at East Lake on Tuesday morning. He hit balls, and then set off on a practice round around 10:30 a.m. He was joined later by his cousin, Joey Harrington, who is the quarterback for the Atlanta Falcons.
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The greens at East Lake Golf Club are "much better than can be expected," according to PGA TOUR Tournament Director Mark Russell.
The bentgrass greens had become stressed during several weeks of temperatures in the upper 90s and 100s. Bentgrass is a cool-weather grass, though, so the more moderate temperatures in the last week have helped considerably.
"In Greensboro a few weeks ago, once the temperature got to 98 degrees, the bentgrass greens just shut down," Russell said. "We didn't even mow them. It was a situation where we were trying to keep them alive. That's what we've had here."
Tournament officials canceled the pro-am and originally told players they would not be able to hit shots to the greens this week. The greens had improved so much, though, that only three remained off-limits to players Tuesday and Wednesday.
Compounding the situation at East Lake were drought conditions. The Atlanta area had no rain from July 30-Aug. 23 -- during the height of the heat wave.
"They could have handled it with ample rainfall, if they had some days where it cooled down and got some nice natural rainfall, but every day it was just boring sun, 100 degrees,' Russell said.
"Plant some palm trees in northern Canada, and see how they do. It's not that simple."
Russell said sod was placed on two of the three greens that were hit hardest. The sod seams have nearly vanished he said, which "tells you we're getting decent growth." He said the greens are being fertilized every three days.
"To tell you the truth, guys, I think they're really good for what they've been through," Russell said. He estimated the greens would run about 9-9.5 on the Stimpmeter, as compared with last year where they were running 11-12.
Mark Calcavecchia played eight holes on Tuesday and rated the greens a 6 on a scale of 1-10. "I think everybody is going to be slightly shocked that they're as decent as they are," he reported.
Calcavecchia said he grew up playing on greens where you were lucky to make an 8-inch putts -- let alone 10-footers. "I guarantee all of us have putted on a worse set of greens than these in our lives," he said, and the rest of the course drew his praise.
"The fairways are the best fairways in the history of golf, by far," Calcavecchia said. "You could eat off these things they're so good. You could throw your fried egg down there and eat off them and not have a problem. Everything is beautiful, fairways, rough.
"You could have a great lie or a horrible lie, which is not a lot of fun. I hit a couple drives that sat up and a couple drives that disappeared, so the rough is going to be 50/50, probably get more bad lies than good, but it's going to be a good tournament, and I hope we get a good crowd out here."
