By Craig Swan
Proud Padraig Harrington reckons it鈥檚 a joy to relive past glories on the Seniors circuit. And the Irish star reckons it鈥檚 as much about conquering demons as displaying quality for the older boys after he scooped a second US Open title. Harrington won three Majors during his earlier career and has now collected two more since switching to the over-50s scene. The former Ryder Cup captain is savouring life amongst the older statesman and the opportunity to roll back time to the days when he won back-to-back Open Championships in 2007 and 2008, as well as a PGA Championship. Harrington explained: 鈥淚 think winning a US Senior Open or any tournament on the Champions Tour, it kind of validates your career. It validates the past in a lot of ways. 鈥淕enuinely, you are reliving the past glories. You鈥檙e hitting shots and you鈥檙e waving at the crowds. The people come out because they know you from the past. The amount of people that will come and say they were at my majors, they watched my majors, or maybe they started playing golf because of the major wins that I鈥檝e had. 鈥淚 also get the grown man who come up to me who tells me I gave them my golf ball when they were a kid. I get that a lot as well. They could have full beard, everything. But that鈥檚 what we鈥檙e here for. 鈥淚 think the Champions Tour consistently delivers great drama Sunday afternoon, household names that we鈥檙e familiar with. The fact that we鈥檙e not all perfect out here, we have many demons out here on the Champions Tour. Everybody鈥檚 dealing with something. They鈥檙e not happy chipping. They鈥檙e not happy putting. There鈥檚 a lot going on in our heads out here. 鈥淚n many ways, we鈥檙e actually more human as well. We鈥檙e more relatable because we can certainly mess up. 鈥淚t鈥檚 brilliant when you get to celebrate with your family, especially my wife is here and one of my kids is here. The other is watching from around the world. 鈥淎s much as I鈥檝e won tournaments back in the day, I didn鈥檛 get to enjoy the experience with my kids. They were there for some of them, but they were only little. Now they understand it. It gives us this opportunity to relive our past glories. 鈥淚 don鈥檛 think there鈥檚 anything I could do now that I couldn鈥檛 have done when I was younger. I would have done some things different when I was younger for sure. I don鈥檛 regret how I approached the game and the way I went about it. Certainly I now appreciate more how much effort it takes to play on a Sunday compared to every other day. 鈥淚 definitely make an effort to enjoy my tournaments more, enjoy what鈥檚 going on around them. It鈥檚 not all work. And having your family here is part of that. 鈥淟ike on Wednesday night, I went for an In-n-Out burger. Like I didn鈥檛 eat a french fry or a burger for 10, 15 years of my career. It was all about everything was get the right diet, all that sort of thing. 鈥淲e鈥檙e so much better together at this stage of our careers. Everybody is happier and friendlier. We鈥檙e not half as grumpy as we were when we were young guys. I think, as you get older, you realise that you don鈥檛 actually have all the secrets and that you can actually tell everybody everything, and it鈥檚 up to them to figure it out too. 鈥淲e鈥檙e much more relaxed. We鈥檙e still competitive when we鈥檙e on the course. We want to play great golf, but I think the environment around the Champions Tour is really nice. Most of us would have burnt out in golf. You put so much into your golfing career, you burn out. Usually you last about 20 years is the burn-out period, 15 to 20 years. The Champions Tour is a new lease on life. 鈥淭he only way you can kind of do it is with a different and new attitude. As I said, it鈥檚 about, I suppose, enjoying your past glories now and reliving them.鈥