As the spotlight shifts to Hazeltine and the defence of his US PGA title in just over a fortnight’s time, one of Padraig Harrington’s most powerful assets is his honesty.

The Dubliner pulls no punches on his website, bluntly describing his season so far as “a washout” and expressing “disappointment” with his feeble defence of The Claret Jug after his 65th-place finish at The Open.

Harrington baldly admits there’s no quick solution to complications caused this season by his attempted swing change but, significantly, insists he’ll be far better prepared for Hazeltine than he was at Turnberry.

The 11 months since Harrington lifted the Wanamaker Trophy in victory at Oakland Hills have yielded little cheer on the golf course as the tumbled 13 places from a career-high No 3 in the world rankings. In 25 events since last year’s US PGA, he has registered just two top-10 finishes on Tour, while his only victory came at the Irish PGA Championship at The European Club.

Significantly, Harrington – a player once known as ‘Europe’s Mr Consistency’ – missed 10 cuts in that time, compared with two by US PGA runner-up Sergio Garcia and just three by fellow Irishmen Rory McIlroy and Graeme McDowell.

Since opening 2009 with a fifth-place finish in Abu Dhabi, Harrington has failed to make the weekend at eight of 17 stroke play events this year, including a career-worst five missed cuts in a row and six out of seven tournaments in May and June.

In contrast, Tiger Woods has missed just six cuts in a professional career stretching back 235 tournaments to the autumn of 1996.

In an era in which many professional sportsmen seem so adept at self-deception (one suspects they’d see the bright side of a black hole!) Harrington’s latest appraisal of his season so far is refreshingly candid.

“I am aware that most of my season to date has been a washout but I am still confident that the short-term pain will lead to long-term gain,” he wrote. “It would be great if I had a magic wand that I could wave and all the work that I have done and have to do was over and fully bedded in, but that is just not possible,” the Irishman added, clearly indicating it would not be wise to wager one’s house on his US PGA defence at Hazeltine.

Yet he insisted he “came away from (the Open) more convinced than ever before that I’m on the right track”.

Not before time. Harrington has slipped to No 130 in the FedEx Cup points charts, five places outside of the field for the first playoff event, The Barclays, at the end of August.

The gap is just 10 points but he’ll still need to get a wriggle on at next week’s Bridgestone Invitational at Firestone or the following week at Hazeltine to be sure of playing a meaningful role in the prestigious, four-tournament FedEx playoff series, culminating with September’s Tour Championship in Atlanta.

Though he is currently on a two-week break from Tour golf, Harrington’s schedule has been pretty full in recent days. The day after his Duel at Lough Erne with Rory McIlroy last Wednesday, he hosted The Padraig Harrington Pro-Am at The K Club on behalf of the Links Society, before making the opening address on Saturday in front of more than 1,100 delegates who attended last weekend’s first National Coaching Conference at City West.

Harrington was then prominent for most of the day at the golf module of that conference and it’s easy to understand why.

‘Fascinating’ is the word which best describes the information imparted by TPI founders Dr Greg Rose and Dave Phillips as they introduced an audience of Irish coaching pros and enthusiasts to the fruits of nearly 14 years’ research into the physical and technical elements of the game.

This week, Harrington will have the opportunity to work on his swing with coach Bob Torrance before heading for Firestone and a fortnight which will determine if a washout season yields an autumn windfall.