Dan O'Neill

The idea that a professional golfer will be coming to Augusta National with a chance to win his third consecutive major championship immediately evokes images in one's mind. They are one-quarter Chinese, one-quarter Thai, one-quarter African American, one-eighth Native American and one-eighth Dutch. They carry a Nike label and No. 1 World Ranking. They include bulging biceps, emphatic first pumps and Sunday reds.

They are images we have seen splashed on countless magazines, a name inscribed on 14 major championships first-place checks. If there is a Slam of majors in the making, a Tiger must be stalking; Mr. Woods must be back in town. The mind plays tricks.

It's true, there is a potential Slam going on. But the true image is 100 percent Irish, an image golf followers might never have expected to see in this context — until last year. While Tiger was away, rehabbing a U.S. Open-damaged knee, Padraig Harrington was at play. He won his second consecutive British Open, the first European to repeat in more than century. He then won the PGA Championship, the first European to do so in 78 years. He became the first European ever to win those tournaments back to back, the first Irishman to even toy with the idea.

Now it's the 37-year-old Harrington, not Woods, who comes to the 2009 Masters with a major championship winning streak in place, with a chance to make it a hat trick. We're not talking “Tiger Slam” here, we're talking “Paddy Slam.”

“I don't think about it at all until I'm asked questions about it,” Harrington said. “It's great to be asked, and it's great to be talked about. It's like before I won my first major, people would ask, 'Oh, you're one of the best players not to have won a major,' and I would always take that as a positive, that it's nice to be included in that category. It's nice to be included in a category that I can possibly win three majors in a row.”

Well, maybe a bit more than “nice.” Because, while Harrington is included in that category, he does not eat at the same table, live in the same neighborhood, command the same respect as those who live there. Ben Hogan and Tiger Woods are the only players to ever win as many as three majors in succession.

And when Augusta National opens its gates, all eyes will be on Woods.

The man who makes the golf needle move recently registered a new tremor. Just three starts into his return from knee surgery, Woods added another dramatic notch to his belt, winning the Arnold Palmer Invitational with a birdie snipe on the 72nd hole and proving once again that where he is concerned, the laws of nature don't apply.

For those who drink that Kool-Aid, who believe a major championship without Papa Swoosh in the house is a “major championship” in name only, Harrington still has something to prove. This first major offers the opportunity to demonstrate the last two majors — won with Woods on the sideline — were for real.

Special feature Masters breakdown Rotoworld.com's Rob Bolton analyzes the top contenders for the Masters, to be played April 9-12 at Augusta National. NBCSports.com

The fact that Woods is stealing much of the pre-tournament thunder, the fact that Harrington is only slightly more visible than the anonymous reigning Masters champion — Trevor Immelman — is not a bad thing. Harrington is the hard-working, no-nonsense type, the Irish version of Vijay Singh, if you will. Mental toughness has been the hallmark of Harrington's three major championships. Mental toughness doesn't need an ego stroked and doesn't need the distractions. Harrington is happy to let some of his contemporaries hog the spotlight.

“Tiger and Phil are playing very, very well,” said Harrington before Mickelson's missed cut in the Houston Open. “Phil is playing great golf at the moment. Rory McIlroy is taking quite a lot of potential as well. I will say I have enough on my own plate. So, yeah, there is some taken away from it.

“My cup is overflowing at this stage. It's nice to have them all (at the Masters) anyway, and I know whether they were or weren't, the only way for me to win the tournament next week is concentrate on my game and do my thing, and not be looking around me. I'm not worried about any one individual out of a field of ... I suppose 100 players.

The truth is Harrington shouldn't have to answer questions or erase asterisks. As a professional, Woods has won slightly more than 30 percent of the majors in which he has played — not 100 percent. Had Woods played in last year's British Open or PGA, the odds were still greater he would have come up short. To imply Harrington should give back the hardware, suggest he would not have back-to-back majors if Woods had been healthy, is taking a shred of evidence and turning it into a three-piece suit.

Hogan did not play in any of the majors Woods has won, and neither did Byron Nelson or Bobby Jones. Does that make those victories somehow tainted? Remember, that was Woods tying for 12th at the 2007 British Open, the other one where Harrington finished first.