Matt Dunham / AP

Sergio Garcia holds the runners-up plate after the British Open on Sunday.

Actually, we watch the guys who make their own breaks, those who, like Harrington, expend little time and energy cursing their luck, focusing instead on the things they can control.

“Normally, when it’s your day, you chip in, you hole a long putt. None of that was happening,” Harrington said.

“I got a very good break on 14. I assumed my ball kicked just left of the green up there. I thought I was going to be like 30 feet away from the hole. Instead I was 15 feet away with a great chance. That was a big break to hole that.

“Again, at no stage besides that one putt there,” he added, “did I feel like, hey, everything is going my way today.”

The knock on Garcia is that he’s never been good under pressure — outside of Ryder Cup matches — and even worse on the greens. He switched to a belly putter — often derided as an “old man’s” club — after missing the cut at the U.S. Open last month and for the first three rounds here, it worked well enough. That may have had more to do with the rain-softened conditions than a change in Garcia’s nerve or skills.

“I was definitely a little bit nervous at the beginning and it’s understandable. If you’re trying to win an Open championship and you’re leading and you’re not nervous, then you must be dead,” he said in a candid moment.

It didn’t last long enough.

“But I don’t know how I managed to do these things. It seems to me like every time I get in this kind of position I have no room for error. I need to miss one shot,” he said, “and I rarely get many good breaks.”

That’s why golf is a four-letter word.