There was once a popular advertising slogan that went as follows: “Behind every successful man is a woman.” While this could have been coined with Caroline Harrington, the wife of the Open champion in mind, it was a man in his eighth decade - someone with a deep pedagogic streak - who knew better than anyone what Padraig Harrington was going through on Sunday night.

Caroline was among the spectators, her hair blown to bits, excitement written all over her face. She runs her husband's life to such an effect that he has to think only about golf. She pays the bills, books the restaurants, runs the family. Of Team Harrington, which also includes Bob Rotella, the noted sports psychologist, Caroline is definitely the chef de mission. The way the couple pull together is evidence of the saying that two people working in perfect harmony can achieve the success of three.

But it was Bob Torrance, Harrington's coach and the father of Sam, the former Europe Ryder Cup captain, who knew how his pupil could achieve what was necessary at the conclusion of the Open. Torrance has given months of his life to working with Harrington, so that when the Irishman reached the moment when he most wanted every working part of his swing to chime perfectly, they did. For Torrance to see Harrington hit that wonderful five-wood through the wind on the 17th on Sunday evening, or smite that accurate tee-shot on the 18th and follow it with a five-iron to the green that guaranteed he would retain the Open title, must have been like an English teacher hearing that his favourite pupil had been awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature.

Torrance, 76, and Harrington, 36, are among the most enduring partnerships in the fickle world of player and coach, in which partnerships change with the wind, never mind the seasons. They started working together in 1996 and are as suited to one another as Guinness and oysters. It remains a mystery, however, how a man with a Scottish accent as impenetrable as Torrance's can communicate with a man whose Dublin dialect is thicker than an Irish stew.

This, indeed, may be one of golf's mysteries. Suffice to say, it works and it is a pleasure to watch the two men on a practice ground. Harrington may have his tongue protruding from the corner of his mouth as he concentrates on what he is attempting to do, while Torrance will occasionally lean forward to make the tiniest change in his pupil's swing, the way an horologist adjusts a pinhead in the mechanism of a Swiss watch.

Harrington has an insatiable desire to improve his swing, Torrance an encyclopaedic knowledge of how to make it happen. Torrance's analysis of what is and is not important is equalled by Harrington's blind belief that what his coach is telling him is the right thing to do.

Torrance has some aphorisms by which he swears. “It is no good having arms like Popeye if you have legs like Olive Oyl,” he has said again and again, just as he has lost track of how often he has instructed pupils who swing too quickly. “Slow down, the film doesn't start until half past seven.”

For Harrington, Torrance is a “genius at analysis. He is the best swing coach in the world. He has unparalleled knowledge of what needs to change and then of the best way to do that. I have total trust in him.”

For years now they have worked together for hour after hour, in three sessions a day, first at Torrance's home in Scotland, now at Harrington's home in Dublin. It is a meeting of minds, an exemplary demonstration of the willing pupil and the gifted teacher.

For Torrance, “Padraig is the perfect pupil in every way. His work ethic, dedication, application are magnificent. He is great under pressure, one of the best I have ever seen. He has got better in the last year. He is getting better all the time, always striving for perfection.”

Although Sam Torrance is the pride and joy of Bob and June, Harrington is the next best thing to another son for the Torrances. In this relationship between the Scot with the growl and the Irishman with the mind of an accountant, there are strong echoes of the bond that Jack Nicklaus had with Jack Grout, Nicklaus's first and only teacher. When Grout died, Nicklaus's ringing endorsement was: “Farewell, my teacher and my friend.”

If and when the Torrance-Harrington partnership comes to an end, the Irishman could do worse than use similar words.