Turnberry wait would have suited Harrington better

By Patrick Johnston

TURNBERRY, Scotland (Reuters) - Padraig Harrington said he wished his bid for a hat-trick of British Open titles could have been postponed for a few weeks due to his poor form.

"If somebody could push the Open back a couple of weeks I'd be delighted," the holder told reporters on Tuesday.

"But I don't have that option. We'll go with whatever we have on Thursday afternoon."

After missing his last five cuts on the European and PGA tours, Harrington said he had spent the past two days working on his swing with coach Bob Torrance.

"I worked hard with Bob yesterday," added the winner of the Claret Jug at Carnoustie in 2007 and Royal Birkdale last year.

"Changed a few little things, which is never great going into a tournament because it's not going to be automatic."

The world number 14 continued his pre-Open ritual by winning the Irish PGA Championship for the third time in a row on Saturday but said his game was still not up to scratch.

"I really struggled with my swing there and did a lot of work yesterday trying to establish where it had gone in the week and how I'd gone from thinking I'd really got to the bottom of this (form slump) to maybe not," said Harrington.