British Open | Padraig Harrington hurting on eve of Open

SOUTHPORT, England — No Tiger Woods — and possibly no Padraig Harrington, either?

Harrington, the defending British Open champion, was forced to cut back a practice round Tuesday because of a sore right wrist, raising doubts about whether he will be able to tee it up in this year's tournament, starting Thursday.

Harrington insisted he'll be ready — with one caveat.

"Obviously I have to manage it between now and then," the Irishman said after scaling back to chipping and putting over the final nine holes of his practice session. "I've got to make sure I don't do anything to it. If I do nothing to it between now and Thursday, I'll be able to play."

The Open can sorely afford to lose another top player. Woods, a three-time British champion and the world's No. 1 player, is sitting out the rest of the year to recover from knee surgery. Another leading American, Kenny Perry, decided to skip the tournament despite winning three of his last five events on the PGA Tour.

Despite taking a couple of days off, Harrington was clearly not at full strength during his first practice round of the week at Royal Birkdale. He played the front side but made sure to avoid hitting any shots out of the thick rough. At the turn, he was checked by a doctor and decided to just work around the green over the final nine holes.

Asked how his wrist felt, Harrington said, "Fuzzy. Tingly. I was weak in the wrist, and that's why I didn't play the back nine. I don't want to aggravate it any more."

Harrington said he sprained the wrist Saturday while swinging into an "impact bag," a sort of punching bag golfers use to strengthen that very crucial part of their bodies. He skipped two days of practice and got treatment, then decided to test it on the course.

No matter what, he won't be doing any work from the tall grass until it counts. Harrington said the next shot he hits from the rough will be in the tournament because he doesn't want to put any extra stress on his wrist.

The injury will surely make the job of defending the claret jug a little tougher. But nothing can take away from Harrington's memorable win a year ago at Carnoustie, where he hit two balls into the Barry Burn on the last hole of regulation but bounced back to beat Sergio Garcia in a four-hole playoff.

Garcia was on the cusp of victory, then watched in agony as a 10-foot par putt at No. 18 slid by the edge of the hole. It was all Harrington in the playoff.

"I would be aware myself of the twin impostors of success and failure, how similar they are," Harrington said. "Over the years, I've done some great things and looked like I've lost tournaments, and I've won tournaments where I struggled home and won it.

"To be very honest, there's not much difference."

Garcia favored to win

The seventh-ranked Garcia, who has inherited the dubious title of Best Player Without a Major Championship, is Ladbrokes' 11-1 wagering favorite, and some bookies are offering odds as low as 8-1.

A Garcia win would also complete a Spanish trifecta. Spain recently won soccer's Euro Cup, and countryman Rafael Nadal won the French Open and Wimbledon tennis titles.

But don't try convincing Garcia that an Open title with no Woods loses its luster.

"With all due respect, the Open is bigger than any of us, even Tiger Woods," Garcia said. "If I happen to never play golf again or Tiger happens to never play golf again, the Open will still be played, and that's the most important thing. Nobody is bigger than the tournament itself.

"If I manage to win this week, I'm not going to go, 'Oh, I won the British Open but Tiger wasn't there.' I'll still have the Claret Jug."

Notes

• Phil Mickelson was asked if he could say anything about Tiger's absence. "Oh, I'm sure I could," Mickelson said, tantalizing his audience. "But right now my focus is, again, this week, as I've got to get my game sharp."

Woods has won 14 of the 46 majors he's played. Before Woods came along, 15 different players won the previous 16 majors.

• Perry, a 22-year Tour veteran, is playing instead in the U.S. Bank Championship in Milwaukee, scheduling it that way before the season started to play his way into the Ryder Cup, scheduled for Louisville's Valhalla in his home state of Kentucky.

• Jim Furyk, with four top-10 finishes in the British Open, offered up this European scouting report: "I'd probably have to say that the tea is highly overrated and the beer is highly underrated."