British Open: Harrington's hopes nosedive

Padraig Harrington's hopes of Open championship glory disappeared with a third round 74 at Royal Lytham.

Harrington had got back into contention with a second round 66, that could have easily been even better, following an opening 75.

At one under par at halfway the Dubliner was only six shots off the lead held by Colin Montgomerie and still entertained thoughts of challenging for the title come Sunday evening.

But those thoughts were forgotten after just eight holes of his third round as the 29-year-old stumbled to a three over par 74 and two over total of 215 and headed straight to the practice putting green.

"It was a case of two bad tee shots," said Harrington who missed the Scottish Open at Loch Lomond last week in favour of practicing on links courses.

"On the seventh I hit it in the rough off the tee and kept it in there all the way down the hole and on the eighth found a bunker off the tee and then three putted."

The resulting bogey and double bogey, coupled with a bogey at the second and birdie on the sixth, took Harrington out in three over par 38 with one birdie and one bogey coming home.

"I was struggling from the eighth onwards," added Harrington who has five second places already this season, including in both the Murphy's Irish Open and Smurfit European Open. "I didn't know whether to try and attack the pins or not, or really which ones to attack.

"I didn't hole any putts on the back nine despite giving myself lots of chances and what happened on the seventh and eighth just left me too much to do."