Padraig Harrington backs Northern Ireland's Royal Portrush in its Open Championship rehearsal "I don't know much about event management, but I do know as a professional golfer that this course is easily capable of staging The Open," Harrington said. Certainly, the R&A will be impressed that there will be 27,000 people here. An estimated 5,000 turned up on Tuesday, unheard of at this stage at a European Tour event, and the sold-out signs will elicit big ticks on the R&A's checklist; so long as the tight links can cope. The economics remain the big stumbling block, although as Harrington said, "the R&A are able to take a financial hit in a given year." The three-time major champion played a practice round with Keegan Bradley on Tuesday and reported that last year's US PGA champion "was taken aback" by the support. It seems a different world to the old days. "I had a great time coming up here as an amateur, but I remember one day there was a roadblock and a policeman told us it was "just a small problem,"" said Harrington. It was a 500lb bomb on the road up ahead - just a small problem then! But people just got on with it and we just played. Golfers are harmless anyway.