There was a haunted look in his eyes as the nightmare threatened to unfold. Padraig Harrington knew only too well that there was more at stake than just the Claret Jug when it all started to go wrong on the final hole of last year’s Open Championship at Carnoustie. His reputation was on the line, and with it, his future as a major contender.

It wasn’t so much his tee shot into the water that did it, but his third, which found the Barry Burn, leaving him with an up-and-down for double-bogey. “I thought that I had lost The Open,” he admits. “And it really hit me hard. I felt embarrassed. I felt I had choked. All of those feelings you should never have on the golf course. I felt like I was going to be judged to high heaven. I was spiralling into the deepest hole in the world.”

His life’s work was in the name of chances like these, and had it not been for his caddie, Ronan Flood, who gave him a talking to, and a missed par putt by Sergio Garcia on the final green, he would have blown it. As it was, his son, Paddy, ran on to provide a degree of perspective, and his psychologist, Bob Rotella, soon straightened him out before the playoff.

Had Harrington not triumphed over those four extra holes, the damage to his career might well have been irreparable. “If I hadn’t had another chance, I’d have looked back at that and said, ‘Do I really want to put my neck on the line? Do I really want to be out there and judged?’ The old subconscious could do a sabotage job every time you’re out there because it doesn’t want you to go through that pain again.

“Subconsciously, there is quite a possibility that I would have steered myself away from that situation. I would have been the guy who is quite happy to play average on a Sunday, and finish top 10. Everybody pats him on the back, he takes home a big cheque and has a great life.”

The fine line they all talk about has never been finer. Harrington was on the brink of becoming Ireland’s answer to Jean Van de Velde, but with a little bit of luck, and the fortitude to take advantage of it, here he is, looking back on the year that followed his breakthrough, the time of his life.

History will remember how close he came to disaster no more than the thousands who have fawned over him these past 12 months, with relentless demands for interviews, autographs and pictures making it by far the busiest year of his career. Everyone wants a piece of him, and the Claret Jug he clutches.

He says the trick is to stand apart from the famous trophy, or else accept a relentless battery of flash bulbs. “It is an absolute magnet for photographs,” he says. “One thing I have suffered from in the past year, and I will have to do something about it, is flash photography. I had a couple of situations where I really struggled with headaches.”

The other challenge has been how best to handle the many lucrative playing opportunities that come the way of every Open champion. Aware of all the former winners who were unable to say no, and burnt out as a consequence, Harrington has been careful not to make the same mistake.

“I’ve turned down some serious, serious money, the kind I couldn’t even have thought about a year ago, let alone 12 years ago, when I started out. Every week, there’s an offer. You just have to accept that you can’t do them all. It’s good golf that makes you happy, not the bank balance. If you keep playing well, the opportunity to do these sort of things will happen over and over, your brand will build and you’ll become a bigger player. If I was on the downslope, and thinking about retiring, I might go chasing the dollar, but I feel like I’ve got another 10 years before I do that.”

Harrington believes he has got his schedule about right. He regrets spending three weeks in the US towards the end of last season, and there was a bout of shingles at the start of this year, but as he gears up for the defence of his title at Royal Birkdale, he says he is striking the ball better than he was a year ago, even if he hasn’t won since that thrilling day on the Angus coast.

This will be a demanding week for the 36-year-old, who played with Angel Cabrera at last month’s US Open, and witnessed first-hand the burden on a defending champion. The pressure got to Cabrera, who missed the cut by six strokes at Torrey Pines.

“I’m trying to downplay the fact that I’m defending the tournament, and all the expectations, pressures and stresses that come with it,” says Harrington. “I don’t have to go out there and prove anything. The goal of the week is to try to win the event, not to go there and make a good defence.” Of course, he is the Open champion, and everyone has recognised as much, except perhaps one unsuspecting soul. After a night out in San Francisco, Harrington was returning home in a taxi, the Claret Jug hidden in a steel box, when he noticed the man at the wheel wearing a golf glove. “I suppose you’re into the inner game of golf,” said the Irishman, a little bemused.

“Actually, Golf in the Kingdom [a book that attempts to explain the philosophical truths to be gained from playing golf] is more my style,” replied the cabbie, before this surreal exchange took a turn for the worse. There was whisky in the jug, some of which had spilled out and started dripping, and it was all that Harrington could do to keep it balanced on his knee.

“I’m going, ‘Oh, I hope he doesn’t see this’. And we’re trying to, first of all, tell him that there’s an ogre in the steel box, and that blood is dripping out. I got out of the taxi hurriedly, and my two mates told him that it was the Claret Jug. Of course, he didn’t believe it, and I’m sure that he still doesn’t. I hope he finds out one day.”

And if he does, he will be able to say: “I had that Claret Jug in the back of my cab once.”

- Royal Bank of Scotland (RBS), a proud patron of the Open, is giving you the chance to win two tickets to each day of The Open at Royal Birkdale (Thursday 17 -Sunday 20 July), plus £100 spending money, to celebrate its support of the event.

For your chance to win, send your answer to the following question, with email address and phone number, to sporttickets@sunday-times.co.uk by 9am on Tuesday: How many major titles did RBS ambassador Jack Nicklaus win?

To find out the answer and more about Jack’s role as an RBS ambassador, visit www.rbs.com/golf