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Apr 25th, 2017
Glove Actually
Sergio & Padraig kiss and make up at Rory's wedding
Words: Tim Southwell Photography: Getty Images
Padraig Harrington and Sergio Garcia have kissed and made up at Rory McIlroy's wedding after years of mild unpleasantness.
The two have been estranged ever since Harrington usurped Garcia to win the 2007 Open and then the 2008 USPGA championship.
"Listen, lads, if it'll help smooth things over I'll get married in 10 years time and you can kiss and make up there?"
Harrington made a thinly veiled attempt to avoid naming the venue of their meeting but his cheeky smile when pressed at an R&A media briefing in Dublin to promote this year's Open Championship at Royal Birkdale, suggested the pair cleared the air at Rory McIlroy's wedding in County Mayo.
With McIlroy's handlers ensuring almost total privacy for the happy couple at Ashford Castle, there were few details about Saturday's events and when Harrington was asked whether he had met with the Spaniard in Mayo, the laughing Irishman replied: "It was somewhere!"
"As you would expect with these things, literally the first person I met (at the wedding) was Sergio. It was something that needed to be done straight away and the opportunity came up straight away.
"I've got to say, Sergio made it very easy. He was exceptionally good about it. He already was well informed, which was nice. That he looked into the deal of it and he understood what I was actually saying."
This attempt in 2011 to use a panda to bring the two together ended in tears after a bitter row over whether they should call him El Nino or Paddy....
Harrington, who won the 2008 Open at Birkdale, is being strongly tipped to be a future Ryder Cup captain and Sergio could well be part of his team in the future.
European fans will be relieved to hear that their relationship "the best it has ever been" according to Padraig.
Things took a turn for the worse just after Garcia's recent Masters triumph, when Harrington described Sergio as a "sore loser".
"Sergio and I are on a much better footing," said Harrington on Tuesday. "We've had a chat, because obviously clearly there was a bit of an elephant in the room about what I said.
"We have decided that we will look, going forward, at our similarities and the good in each of us rather than any other way. So we are in a great place. So if anything, it's worked out for the better."
