The 2008 Open Championship was foul. Before dawn on the Thursday of the opening round a howling Atlantic front swept into Lancashire sending temperatures plummeting faster than the rain that hammered horizontally across the Royal Birkdale links.

Wet, cold and windy, it was everything professional golfers hate. Add one of the toughest courses on the Open rota and an unforgiving set-up that left some of the mere mortal hitters in the field wondering if they would reach the fairways when driving upwind, and it was clear that only the most resolute competitors had a chance of victory.

In the circumstances, perhaps we should have been less surprised that Padraig Harrington should have defended the title he won at Carnoustie a year previously. The tougher the course and the more demanding the conditions, the more the Irishman excels. Give him a soft parkland stroll in a Floridian zephyr and he will not shoot the lights out. This is no “streaky” player mixing 65s and 74s, but a competitor galvanised by the unique test of major championships.

That Harrington should have followed his retention of the Open title with victory in the US PGA Championship three weeks later was altogether less likely. If there was any question over the scale of his achievement in the absence of the injured Tiger Woods – and there should not be – it was removed as the Irishman confirmed his rise to the peak of the world game.

Winning majors is phenomenally difficult. Huge fields, the endless variables of course and weather and the levelling effect of 72 holes make one hard enough. Winning two in a season is exceptional, and the scale of Harrington’s achievements in 2008 can be gauged by the elite company in which he now finds himself.

In retaining the Open Harrington joined a list headed by Tiger Woods, and including Trevino, Palmer, Thomson, Locke, Hagen, Jones and Vardon. By winning two majors in a season he now also rubs shoulders with Price, Faldo, Watson, Nicklaus, Sarazen and Snead, and only three others – Woods, Price and Hagen – have matched his season-ending double. When Woods returns from injury in the spring it is Harrington he will fear most, and it is the Irishman who will arrive at Augusta in April chasing a ‘Paddy Slam’ of his own.

Harrington’s feats in 2008 mark the flowering of a career that, until his mid-20s, seemed destined for accountancy. Tenacious, unyielding and blessed with apparently boundless reserves of mental strength, Harrington is that most admirable of champions, the worker. He was not blessed with a stellar natural gift for the game but he has drained every ounce from the ability he has.

Watch Phil Mickelson face at the top of his through-swing and you see a half smile, the Californian apparently in awe of the ease with which he plays the game. Watch Woods and you see expectation in his eyes, the greatest player who ever laced on a pair golf shoes impatient for further evidence of his devastating skills.

Look at Harrington and you see effort. As he folds the club deliberately over his left shoulder and raises his eyes to follow the ball, Harrington’s teeth nip over his lower lip. It lends him an air of anxiety, but in 2008 he seldom had cause to fear the results of any shot. Working under the gimlet-eye of Bob Torrance, father of Ryder Cup-winning captain Sam, Harrington has grooved a powerful and reliable swing that allows him to play the shots required on both the links where he learned the game and the American courses where he has cemented his reputation.

His mental strength is even more formidable, a product of a long-standing partnership with Bob Rotella, the golf psychologist who has helped turn the him into perhaps the most nerveless putter on tour. With the exception of Jonny Wilkinson no sportsman talks with more honesty about the mental challenge of elite sport than Harrington, but when he opens up there is no sign of anguish, only a frank explanation of the obstacles to success that lie between the ears.

At Birkdale and then Oakland Hills he gave a masterclass in the transformative powers of self-belief. In 2007, he fell over the line at Carnoustie, twice finding the Barry Burn at the 72nd hole when a par would have won him the title, and only won when gifted a second-chance by the frailty of Sergio Garcia.

Armed with the priceless confidence that flowed from that experience there were to be no similar wobbles in 2008 as Harrington closed out his two majors with a focus very few players achieve.

At Birkdale he fretted his way into the championship citing a wrist injury but, once he was in contention, played with a certainty that mocked the conditions. Paired with Greg Norman in the final round Harrington dismissed any notion of sentimentality for the resurgent White Shark to come home in 32 and win by four strokes. That charge began with a nerveless up-and-down at the 10th after successive bogeys had opened the door for Norman, and concluded with a five-wood to four feet at the 17th that Torrance described as “the best shot I ever saw”.

In Michigan three weeks later he was more impressive, producing back-to-back 66s to defeat Garcia. Trailing at the start of the round, Harrington’s focus and his putting - he one-putted 10 of the last 12 greens – were too much for the Spaniard.

The exertions of the year meant that Harrington arrived at the Ryder Cup at Valhalla in September all but spent, his competitive juices drained by the individual feats that had come before and hard to summon for the vagaries of team golf. In short, it was precisely the condition in which Woods usually arrives at the Ryder Cup and, to the sportsman of the year, no finer tribute can be paid than that.