It's amazing how little things can change the course of history.

How little Paddy Harrington running onto the 18th green at Carnoustie after 72 holes of the 2007 Open helped his dad become a Major Champion.

How a wrist injury sustained the Saturday before the 2008 Open at Royal Birkdale turned down the heat on Harrington as he prepared to defend The Claret Jug.

How a phone call to his trainer, Dr Liam Hennessy, on Friday at the US PGA Championship would be as significant as the blessed trinity of putts the Dubliner sank to break Sergio Garcia's heart the following Sunday afternoon.

What if Dr Hennessy's cell phone had gone on the blink that evening?

Or if Mother Nature hadn't intervened the following day at Oakland Hills to give Harrington ample opportunity to recover from the case of dehydration his medic had diagnosed over the phone.

The margin is so slim between success and failure, Harrington (pictured right) says the majority of big tournament winners need twists of fate like these to help turn the tide in their favour.

For that reason, nobody, not even Tiger Woods, goes into any of golf's Grand Slam events knowing they will win.

What sets Tiger apart is his firm conviction that he'll not wither when the heat rises to blast-furnace intensity on the final nine holes of a Major.

For quite some time, golf has waited for the emergence of a player capable of going eyeball-to-eyeball with Woods late on Sunday afternoon at the Majors and truly believe they can win.

Sure, Rocco Mediate took the one-legged Tiger all the way to the 19th extra hole on Monday at last June's US Open and, yes, he performed brilliantly at Torrey Pines, way beyond everyone's expectations, including his own.

Harrington has emerged over the past 18 months as a man of far more substance at the Majors. While his back nine on Sunday at Birkdale was brilliant, the way he mauled Sergio Garcia and ground out a result at Oakland Hills proved beyond doubt that the Dubliner is as much at home in this jungle as the Tiger.

Garcia was only marginally less grudging than usual but the man he tied with for second, Ben Curtis, put it in a nutshell when he said of Harrington's performance: "That was Tiger-like right there. Padraig knows how to win. He's not afraid to win and that's what it takes."

Perhaps the ultimate compliment came from Tiger himself a couple of weeks back as he revealed why his vote had gone to Harrington in the PGA Tour's Player of the Year poll. "Look how Paddy did it," Woods enthused. "He shot 32 on the back nine at both of them. He got it done the right way. He went out and earned it."

Tiger's relish for his confrontation with Harrington at next April's US Masters was almost palpable. The Irishman will come under unprecedented pressure at Augusta National as he bids for a third successive Major title, making this a bit of a mystery tour, but if he and Woods get into contention on Sunday, they'll make the gunfight at the OK Corral look tame.

If it doesn't happen in Augusta, then Bethpage can brace itself for battle royal between these two in June's US Open - or will Turnberry, venue for the 2009 Open, play host once again to a thrilling two-man shootout on the 20th anniversary of that unforgettable clash between Tom Watson and Jack Nicklaus?

We all thought a superstar named Mickelson or Els, Singh or Goosen, or maybe even El Nino, would emerge as a rival for Tiger at the Majors. Instead, plain Padraig Harrington from Rathfarnham upstaged them all by winning three of the last six Majors. Fantastic, isn't it?

On the surface, Harrington's gifts are plain to see, especially in his genius for the short game. He possessed such a deft touch around the green that elder brother Tadhg, his caddie in the amateur days, brilliantly describes it as 'the Picasso factor'.