Padraig Harrington has dismissed his chances of winning an historic third successive Open Championship, making the extraordinary admission that he would play at Turnberry this week “more in hope than expectation”.

Victories at Carnoustie in 2007 and at Royal Birkdale last summer had put Harrington on course to become the first golfer since Australia's Peter Thomson in 1954-56 to win three Opens in a row. But he now concedes that his decision to change a swing that was already good enough to win those back-to-back Opens and
last year's US PGA Championship will almost certainly cost him theClaret Jug on Sunday. The Dubliner said: "Sometimes you need to make short-term sacrifices for long-term gains. I just wanted to have a better golf swing.

"I've spent most of my career trying to get better for the future and that's what I've been doing this year. Hopefully, I'll eventually be more comfortable with my swing and over the next 10 years I'll be very competitive and I'll win plenty more tournaments.

"But it's going to be hard to stay focused throughout this week."

Harrington comes to Turnberry having won the Irish PGA title for a third time at the weekend but that was little more than a local affair for club professionals. In proper tour tournaments the Ryder Cup star has missed five successive cuts, including that at the US Open where he had the second-worst record for driving accuracy.

Now he is facing a Turnberry course that will severely punish the wayward driver. Harrington, 37, added: "If somebody could push this Open back a couple of weeks I'd be delighted."