Notes: Harrington signs three part- time sponsors for special charity push

Three companies have signed up to advertise through Padraig Harrington in a unique, part-time sponsorship to raise money for his wife’s cousin, who was paralyzed from the waist down in a car accident.

Harrington decided to auction the branding on his clothes that he wears at the Shell Houston Open, the Masters, and the Heritage. His regular sponsors have endorsed his effort.

IdentityX, Clune Construction and Blarney.com have taken him up on his offer. They have offered more than $200,000, which will go to the Padraig Harrington Charitable Foundation for Gerard Byrne.

IdentityX gets his cap and clothing, while Clune Construction and Blarney.com are taking spots on his clothing. Barney.com also has pledged a percentage of their website sales.

“I hope I will repay their support with some good results over the next three weeks while wearing their branding,” Harrington said. “I am also very grateful to my current sponsors for allowing me to do this. I know this assistance will help Gerard and his family, who have shown so much courage during this difficult time.”

NEW MEMBER: Peter Hanson of Sweden has taken special temporary membership in the PGA Tour, which allows him to take unlimited exemptions for the rest of the year.

Hanson has been living in Orlando (Lake Nona) for the last few years as his children get closer to going to school. He effectively was commuting to the European Tour, though, because he had no status in America.

That changed this year. He reached the quarterfinals of the WGC-Accenture Match Play Championship and tied for fourth at the WGC-Cadillac Championship. With $644,765, that was more than enough to get temporary membership.

If his earnings are equal or better to No. 125 on the money list at the end of the year, he will have his full PGA Tour card in 2013 for the first time. That seems likely. Hanson still has four majors and a World Golf Championship that would count toward that.

TOP 100 WORLDWIDE: Royal County Down in Northern Ireland remains No. 1 in Golf Digest’s latest ranking of Top 100 golf courses outside the United States.

The list will be in the May issue. It’s the first worldwide “Top 100” ranking since 2009. It was compiled based on a 609 panelists who provided 11,426 golf course evaluations, along with input from 30 international editions of the magazine.

Royal Melbourne (the West Course, not the composite used for the Presidents Cup) moved up 20 spots to No. 2 and was followed by the Old Course at St. Andrews.

Rounding out the top 10 were Royal Dornoch (Scotland), Muirfield (Scotland), Cape Kidnappers (New Zealand), Turnberry (Scotland), Hirono (Japan), Kingston Heath (Melbourne) and St. George’s, which hosted the Canadian Open.

The magazine also includes course rankings for 203 different countries, from Afghanistan to Zimbabwe.

DIVOTS: Tiger Woods is among the top 10 in seven of 10 statistical categories on the PGA Tour. He leads in total driving (distance and accuracy rankings combined), and the all-around ranking. He is second in scoring average behind Rory McIlroy. … Phil Mickelson will be wearing a blue hat at golf tournaments to promote a project with sponsor KPMG aimed at buying books for children in low-income families. The public can buy the same hat, and each hat sold will go toward the purchase of three books. … Golf Channel has agreed to a three-year extension to show the Kraft Nabisco Championship, the first major on the LPGA Tour.

STAT OF THE WEEK: Eight of the top 20 players in the world have won this year on the PGA Tour. A year ago, only four players from the top 15 had won on PGA Tour or European Tour.

FINAL WORD: “This will be my 54th trip to Augusta. I got $20,000 for winning the Masters. Now I get $10,000 to go there and eat a free steak.”—Bob Goalby, 1968 Masters champion.