The European Tour Order of Merit title, a victory in Japan over Tiger Woods, a Texaco award and an honorary fellowship from the Dublin School of Business.

But for Padraig Harrington Professional Golfer, the notches on the belt are less defined.

In fact, there probably isn't a belt.

Harrington's the type of guy who could write a mini-thesis on the question of whether the brilliant shot stems from confidence, or whether the brilliant shot generates the confidence.

He still isn't too sure about chickens and eggs. What he is certain about, and what he emphasises again and again, is that the game comes before the garlands.

While he won't be handing the baubles back any day now, and while he enjoys the glow of achievement, he knows how deceptive success can be.

Understandably, people see the results, the glittering prizes, the noughts on the cheques. They see the newly-crowned European number one taking out Woods in a play-off. They see Harrington mostly in the context of what he wins.

He sees it differently. It's as if he now relishes the technical and mental examination that accompanies pressure, almost more than the outcome itself. He wants to know if his tactics, his approach, his thinking . . . everything he spends countless hours honing . . . can stand the test.

He is eternally wary of glory. It's as if there's a nagging fear that victory might bring complacency. So beating Tiger Woods wasn't about beating Tiger Woods, and sitting back and ticking a box. Beating Tiger Woods was about Padraig Harrington.

"Whether I'm up against the number one in the world or the number 100 in the world, I try to do my own thing. I play my own game. So it's good to get confirmation that what you're doing works because I know that sometimes I won't get results.

"Look, I'd be no different a golfer right now if Tiger had holed a threefoot putt on the 16th and won by a shot. We'd be none the wiser."

Before he turned pro, he had put Phil Mickelson and Ernie Els on a pedestal, and later when Woods lit up golf 's sky, he found himself unashamedly looking up at a threeball of superstars. Despite what happened in the play-off at the Dunlop Phoenix in Miyazaki last Sunday, Harrington typically is keeping Woods, and Mickelson and Els for that matter, firmly on the pedestal.

"That's the way I like it, I want them up there, because it wasn't necessarily about beating Tiger, it was more about winning in that sort of situation. If anything, it might be easier to beat Tiger in a play-off because you're in a no-lose position. You might feel under a bit more pressure if you come up against someone you're supposed to beat."

He gambled with a shot through a gap in a tree at the second hole, and then played a killer wedge from 96 yards to two feet for a birdie which Woods failed to match. "The great thing for me is that I had an opportunity to test the theories of what I should be doing in an extreme situation. Being able to control some things and not being able to control others. Being able to read the situation, to make choices.

"You can say that this is the way you want to approach the game, and you can play friendly golf, and then you can play on Thursday, Friday and Saturday, but the real test comes on a Sunday afternoon. I was there last Sunday, in the heat of battle, and it worked for me. But am I a different golfer now? No."

As the sports psychologist, Bob Rotella, reminds him time and again, it's not about the result, it's about doing the right things. As he approaches the end of the manual with Bob Torrance, it could be that Rotella will play an increasingly significant role as Harrington intensifies his search for a major championship.

To get the best out of all the technical work he has done with Torrance, he will have to concentrate more on Rotella's message.

"Rotella is very straightforward. He gets me to prepare myself to focus on the target and, for him, it's never about winning or losing. You can go out there and play your very best golf, and someone plays better, or someone might be lucky. Do you beat yourself up over it?"

Earlier in the season, Harrington was beating himself up. In America, he had hit the ball really well, but to no avail. For some reason, he got caught up in stats, poring over how many fairways and greens he had hit. He would curse himself if an approach finished in the fringe 10 feet from the hole, and yet he felt fine if he was on the green 20 feet away.

"Stupid, " he says now.

Despite a decent run of form which included the bitter disappointment of bogeying the last three holes at the US Open and losing by two, he was still "churning up inside, trying too hard".

He missed the cut at the British Open, and then came into the USPGA Championship perfectly content with the way he was hitting the ball, and missed the cut again.

Instead of running from Chicago, he decided to stay and practise over the weekend as a "kind of punishment". As Woods was powering to his 12th major success, Harrington was being asked what score he had shot, and he would have to remind people that he wasn't actually playing.

"Something was missing, and it had taken me until the USPGA to realise that it wasn't my ball-striking, it was simply that my focus was wrong, I was putting too much pressure on myself.

I wasn't letting it happen."

Going into the Dunhill Links last month 725,000 behind Paul Casey in the money list, the Order of Merit appeared to be a lost cause, which is exactly the way Harrington likes it.

He won going away at St Andrews, and then kidded around with his son Patrick while Sergio Garcia bogeyed the last hole at Valderrama to move him past Casey.

"My attitude was much better after the USPGA. I mean, nothing went right for me for 63 holes at the Volvo Masters, and I was patient, I didn't let it get to me, I stayed in there. Of course I got satisfaction from winning the Order of Merit, but just like the way Tiger missed a putt in Japan, if Sergio had parred the 18thf I'm not a different golfer because that happened."

He's a touch weary, but rounding off the season as he is in those dull, grey, down-market enclaves of Sun City, Sandy Lane in Barbados and the Hidden Valley near Los Angeles, he's not looking for any sympathy. "I've won nearly everything up to a major, so it's quite obvious what I'm thinking next, " he says. "I'll do my own thing, and let's see what happens."

If there were no Eureka moments over the past few weeks, and no notches on any belt, you still get the feeling that something has changed in 35year-old Padraig Harrington's life.

Same down-to-earth bloke. Better player.