Succinct. "I ran out of steam," said The British Open champion, with no apology. Padraig Harrington, his sky-blue shirt having turned to navy with the sweat stitching it to his skin, finished the 89th US PGA Championship here yesterday with a 74 for 288, eight over.

He immediately dispatched his caddie, Ronan Flood, to have his clubs forwarded to New York; he won't be reacquainted with them for a week.

Instead of spending endless hours on the range, Harrington will, instead, seek to recharge his batteries with a family holiday at Disney World in Orlando.

"This is for Paddy," he said of the holiday for his nearly four-year-old son.

So, the grind of championship golf with be replaced by helter-skelter rides such as The Hulk, Space Mountain, Monsters Inc Laugh Floor and Buzz Lightyear's Space Rangers' Spin.

It'll make a welcome change.

Harrington's next tournament won't be until the Barclays Classic at Westchester, the first of four in a row in the new FedEx Cup that also take in the Deutsche Bank Championship in Boston, the BMW Championship in Cog Hill near Chicago and the Tour Championship in Atlanta.

Yesterday, on another sweltering day in Tulsa, Harrington completed his first major as a major champion with a round that produced just one birdie and five bogeys. In fact, he started off with two bogeys, and whatever fire he was attempting to light was immediately dampened.

"I don't think the weather helped me, but I don't think it got to me. I was trying hard, but trying too hard, and that was very evident today. I know there are times that I try harder and sometimes that's not what you need to do in these situations. It's not a bad thing, because I can see that in my game now and I don't have to beat myself up.

"It was another major tournament, and, looking back, I probably ran out of steam. You need to be 100 per cent at the majors and I wasn't this week. I'd a busy week at home after the Open, then for the few days before (the Bridgestone) Firestone and the actual tournament at Firestone. I could see it in my game.

"Every time I tee it up out there, especially in the major events, I learn a little bit about what I need to be doing and the right and the wrong things to approach it. It's all about gaining experience. Okay, I have got a major. I did get things right that week, but, overall, you are still learning, still perfecting that sort of preparation so that you do bring you're a game into these tournament. As I've proved, if I do that, I can win them."

Yet again, Paul McGinley left a major in frustration.

What hurt most was that he entered the weekend in a position to contend, in tied-ninth and six shots behind Tiger Woods. The final two rounds, though, brought a 76 and yesterday's 75, which he referred to as "car crash golf", and which saw him freefall down the leaderboard to finish in on 291, 11 over.

"What can I say? I certainly didn't play as badly as I scored. You know, I couldn't have scored any worse over the weekend, but I putted dreadfully for the two days and had three double-bogeys, and it is very hard to play when you're doing that," said McGinley.

He felt that his battery had run low after a run of 13 tournaments in 17 weeks, including eight in a row up to the PGA.

As he walked down the 18th hole, his caddie, Darren Reynolds, pointed out that he had run up seven double-bogeys and one triple-bogey in eight rounds at the Bridgestone and the PGA. It was a statistic that hit home.

"That's car crash golf, and you can't expect to compete when you're doing that because, not alone are you bogeying, you're doubling and tripling and losing so much momentum. That is what is hurting me, there's just too many disasters," said McGinley.

Much of his troubles came on the greens, taking 33 putts on Saturday (including three three-putts) and 30 yesterday.

"I putted abysmally," he conceded.

Indeed, his two birdies in the final round were so close to the hole that he couldn't miss: on the short sixth, he hit a seven-iron to two feet, and, on the 11th, he hit an eight-iron to eight inches. "Not alone was I not making any birdie putts, apart from the two kick-ins, I've missed a lot of six-footers for par and they're putts you've got to make in major championships."

The poor putting was compounded by problems on the back nine where he ran up double-bogeys at the 12th and the 16th when he was so wayward he found water. "Twice I found water on the back nine and it is not as if there is a lot of water here . . . a bad shot seems to find the worse possible position."

McGinley intends to take a two- or three-week break, unsure where he will return to tournament play. Of the intense schedule of the past three months, McGinley observed, "I've probably played too much but, unfortunately, my decent form came at the end of the run instead of the start. I didn't maximise the way I played the last three or four weeks in terms of scoring. I've played poorly the last 18 months and when I do find a bit of form, you just want to keep going. If I'm to be honest, it hasn't worked. It often doesn't if you chase it. I'm going to take some time off now and regroup."