When you get a call asking if you are available to shoot a 3 times major winner at his home, you re-arrange you diary especially when that person is Padraig Harrington, one of the most interesting and personable players I’ve ever had the pleasure to work with.

I met Neil Tappin, Golf Monthly’s digital Editior at Gatwick on the Thursday Evening, where we flew into Dublin and met up with the FootJoy Europe team.  What should have been a 35 minute drive South of Dublin actually took over an hour as our sat nav decided to take us through Dublin City Centre at rush hour. I passed the time telling the team some trivia things about some of the landmarks we passed by, it might not all have been true but it got a few laughs.

Over supper and probably the best pint of Guinness I’ve ever had, we went through the brief for the shoot and video content and retired for the Evening.

After an early start we found ourselves at Padraig’s pad and were welcomed with a traditional Irish Cuppa.

Without giving too much away before the feature comes out, I can tell you that we spent the morning in Padraig’s indoor range testing a new product soon to be released by FootJoy. We also did a tour of his house which was followed by a live Facebook interview which by the time we had got back to the airport already had over 50,000 views.

I’ve been very lucky to have worked with Padraig on several occasions, you can see from the various images that he has changed a bit from our first shoot back in 2010! Here he was experimenting with getting his body fat down to 8%. Now at 44 he’s looking as fit as ever before and his game is also looking very good.

He really is one of the best professionals I’ve ever had the pleasure to work with