Pádraig: Golf's gift that keeps on giving
Repeat U.S. Senior Open champ still exudes love of the game at 54
Pádraig Harrington celebrates a third U.S. Senior Open victory at Scioto (Jeff Haynes/USGA)
Pádraig Harrington deserves a good bit of appreciation. Not just for his victory on Sunday at the U.S. Senior Open, although that is just an extra bit of reason to do so.
The three-time major champion from Ireland did capture the U.S. Senior Open for the second consecutive year and third overall since 2022. But it was what Harrington said prior to the senior major championship that caught our attention.
Harrington, 54, is in the midst of playing eight consecutive weeks. That’s almost unheard of in today’s professional game, and certainly not by a senior player who also competed at the U.S. Open at Shinnecock last month and will play again next week in the Open Championship at Royal Birkdale.
“Some people have obviously said it to me, and I kind of go, when I’m 70 years of age, I won’t regret playing an extra event,” Harrington said.
Classic Pádraig.
In today’s DD …
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Sometimes quirky and obsessive — think Viktor Hovland and the need to always being tinkering — but amazingly engaging and thoughtful, Harrington will one minute be talking about swing theory, the next about playing the first two rounds of the U.S. Open with Miles Russell, who is only 17, or explaining something about the videos he posts on social media.
Harrington began posting the videos during COVID from an amazingly nice practice area at his home in Dublin, Ireland. The series of lessons became popular and he continues to do so when he can today.
All the while, Harrington exhibits a “happy to be here” vibe which might at times seem corny but is also endearing.
“Who wouldn’t want to do what I do?” Harrington said. “Every tournament I turn up to, it’s in the best condition that a golf course can be for us. Everything is looked after. Everything is like as good as can be.
“For a normal person who’s into their golf, they would save all their money to have that one week’s holiday a year, and I get to do it 30 times a year. That’s not lost on me. I love playing golf. I love being out here competing. So I don’t have a problem playing lots of events.
“Like when I started as a pro, 28 tournaments (a year) was your standard. It’s really got lost in this world, this idea of only playing 20 tournaments or something like that. It was always 28 as a pretty much standard back in the day.”
It is somewhat lost in today’s pro world that playing 25 tournaments is still working less than half the year. Sure, there’s a lot more that goes into it than just the tournament week, but we’ve become conditioned to the idea that these guys get worn out playing three straight weeks and that a schedule beyond 20 events is somehow exhausting.
Perhaps given the demands of today’s game — the corporate commitments, the travel, the gym work, the practice time — it is too daunting to play that often.
Then there is Harrington, who started his run last month at the RBC Canadian Open, where he missed the cut, followed by a missed cut at the U.S. Open. Then it was on to the Dick’s Open on the PGA Tour Champions, where he lost in a playoff prior to his victory on Sunday at the U.S. Senior Open.
This week, Harrington is skipping another senior major, the Senior Players Championship, to compete in the Genesis Scottish Open, followed by the Open and Senior Open in back-to-back weeks followed by yet another PGA Tour Champions event at the Els Club Vilamoura in Portugal.
“If I was off, I’d be working anyway. I’d be practicing and doing things,” Harrington reasoned. “Golfing-wise, there’s always something to work on with the golf game. There is always something to keep you interested. If it does come down to it and I feel a little tired or I’ve done too much, I can always go and have a holiday at the event. That’s sometimes lost on people. You can turn up at an event and just go, I’m going to play four tournament rounds this week and do the minimum, minimum outside of that and just have a nice week.”
That is clearly a departure from the way most pros view tournament golf. And that’s fine, too. Playing just to play wouldn’t suit everyone. But for Harrington, there are those weeks.
“You don’t have to take a week off from golf to relax and take it easy,” he said. “So there’s many different types of weeks. Some weeks you’re out there and it could be a smaller event and you are working really hard. Other weeks it could be a smaller event and you genuinely go out there and have a good time.
“Then we know with the bigger tournaments like this week or any of the majors, you are actively trying to prepare for Sunday rather than Thursday. That means you would be trying to take as much rest in as you can in the Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday.
“That is one thing that’s changed from years ago. I think years ago everybody panicked on a Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday. Players now know, certainly tee-to-green, that they’ll be able to adapt and deal with whatever they get on the tournament days.
“So players probably play a lot less practice holes now than they would have played 25 years ago.”
Typically observant, Harrington is correct. The top players, at least, rarely grind at a major tournament site anymore. The idea is to be physically and mentally prepared. Less golf means better golf, or so goes the reasoning.
For Harrington, more golf means … well more golf.
He wouldn’t skip this week’s Scottish Open at the Renaissance Club simply because he wants to best acclimate himself to play links golf and be prepared for Royal Birkdale, where he overcame Greg Norman and Ian Poulter in 2008 to win his second Claret Jug.
Always searching.
“If I hit the very best shot on the range — so if you gave me a 5-iron and I hit the purest 5-iron you could hit — I’d try and hit the next shot better,” he said. “That is the stupidity of me. I would not — in a game that’s all about consistency, I wouldn’t try and hit the next shot the same, I’d try and hit it better, which is kind of mad.”
This week in golf
At the John Deere Classic: As a warmup for his Scottish Open defense this week, Chris Gotterup fired a Sunday 62 to storm to victory over Max Homa and Lucas Glover at TPC Deere Run. It’s Gotterup’s third PGA Tour win of the season, fourth in 12 months and fifth overall. Ben Kohles lost his playoff chance with a finishing double bogey.
At the BMW International Open: South Africa’s Michael Hollick, a rookie on the DP World Tour at age 39, got his first career victory with an eagle at the final hole at Golfclub München Eichenried to finish 18-under and jump countryman Hennie Du Plessis, who was in the clubhouse at 17-under par. Hollick made up a three-shot deficit over the final two holes as Du Plessis played them in 1-over at the tournament in Munich while he went 3-under.
At the U.S. Senior Open: Harrington’s 4-under 66 on Sunday at Scioto Country Club in Columbus, Ohio, was good for a four-shot victory over Stewart Cink and a title defense plus a third victory in the championship. Harrington joins Miller Barber for the most U.S. Senior Open wins and is the fourth player to win it back-to-back, joining Barber (1984-85), Gary Player (1987-88) and Allen Doyle (2005-06). Cink was trying to win his third PGA Tour Champions major of the year and keep his Senior Slam alive.
The Open field takes shape
Hennie Du Plessis might have lost the trophy at the BMW International but he won a spot in the Open anyway. He was one of five players who qualified for next week’s major at Royal Birkdale via a category for the top five players in the DP World Tour’s Race to Dubai standings who were not already exempt. De Plessis was joined by Bernd Weisberger, Jayden Schaper, Andy Sullivan and Dan Bradbury.
The field now stands at 138 players, although Sam Burns is expected to withdraw due
