Editor’s note: The following excerpt is from a piece our Andrew Tursky filed for PGATour.com’s Equipment Report. In the larger piece, Tursky hears from the font of golf wisdom that is Padraig Harrington (look out for more from Padraig in coming weeks). You can read the full piece here. 

…The topic of length was already discussed to start the week by the top two players in the world at Memorial Park Golf Course. With wet conditions on the way world No. 1 Scottie Scheffler and FedExCup leader Rory McIlroy suggested extra yardage off the tee was needed for an already long municipal golf course that’s open to the public for most of the year. Because of this, Harrington believes recommends his speed practice to amateurs, too.

“It’s not a bad thing to swing something fast,” Harrington added. “That doesn’t mean you should always swing your driver fast, too. But I say to my amateurs, at least 20 balls a week, you should be swinging really hard. Really, really trying to push it up there, and then play within yourself. You don’t have to swing as hard on the golf course, but you should sometimes in practice just to get a feel for it.”

This practice of pushing his speed forward, however, does have a drawback: Cracked driver faces.

“I always carry two drivers,” Harrington says. “Not in the tournament, but I warm up with a backup driver because I don’t want to crack the face. So I’ve always got two drivers on the go because if they crack, you’ve got to have a backup there, especially because I do a lot of speed work. If you do speed work, you tend to mishit the club. So it’s not that the club cracks, it’s just that I’ve mishit it so much, going pretty hard at it, that I will eventually crack them.”

On Wednesday in Houston, Harrington also touched on the topic of averages. Stats such as average ball speed and average distance are discussed plenty among players, coaches, rule makers, club designers, and in the media – even right here on the PGATOUR.COM Equipment Report. Harrington, however, prefers to discuss the extremes. The topic arose when we asked Harrington about his record ball speed with the driver so far this year.

“This year, 189 mph, I haven’t gotten to 190,” Harrington said. “I reckon about 5 percent of the field will be able to go 190s here this week [in Houston]. You know, I laugh about them all talking about speed. … They all start talking about averages. These are engineers, some of these people, and I’m going, ‘Since when does an engineer ever use an average?’ Like, if you use an average for a building, the building will fall down. You use your extremes.”

For Harrington, it’s all about that top number and the most a player can get out of their swing.

“When you’re talking ball speed, you want to look at what guys are capable of getting when they open their shoulders on an appropriate hole,” Harrington added. “I think you’ll find seven people here this week that will break that 190 mph barrier.”

To Harrington’s point, the best way to improve speed is to continue pushing your top-end ball speed higher, and then “playing within yourself” on the course by trying to hit the center of the face more often. The averages take care of themselves.

Read the rest of the piece here.

Check out fresh photos of Harrington’s WITB here.