US Senior Open glory for Pádraig Harrington
STAR IN STRIPES: Pádraig Harrington celebrates winning the U.S. Senior Open Championship at Saucon Valley Country Club in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania.
It doesn’t change the result of his Ryder Cup captaincy, but Pádraig Harrington at least got some measure of payback on his American counterpart Steve Stricker.
Despite nearly blowing a six-shot lead on the final nine, Harrington got the one birdie he needed on the 15th hole to offset a furious charge by Stricker and win the U.S. Senior Open by one shot on Sunday at Saucon Valley’s Old Course in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania.
The victory in his U.S. Senior Open debut gives the 50-year-old Irishman his first senior circuit major title to go along with the three he claimed on the regular tour. His 1-over-par 72 to finish 10-under 274 made him the first Irish winner of the Francis D. Ouimet Memorial Trophy, joining hall-of-famers Arnold Palmer, Gary Player, Lee Trevino and Jack Nicklaus as the only multiple winners of the Open Championship to also win the U.S. Senior Open.
“It would have to be Steve Stricker chasing me down,” Harrington said after surviving what he admitted was “a tension-filled day” to clip Stricker, to whom he had also finished second to in the season’s first senior major at the Regions Tradition in May.
“Steve, give me a break, please. Yeah, Steve's a tough competitor. Certainly, he seems to have one on me over the years. So it's nice to get one back on him this time.”
For most of Sunday, it looked like Harrington’s margin would be as comfortable as the one Stricker’s American team sauntered to against Europe in last fall’s Ryder Cup at Whistling Straits. Harrington looked at the leaderboard after nine holes and saw his five-stroke 54-hole lead had grown to six, as his closest Sunday pursuers Gene Sauers and Rob Labritz were unable to put any pressure on him as they each were en route to 3-over 74s.
But then Harrington made a mess with bogeys at 10 and 11, while little eruptions of cheers from up ahead signaled somebody was making a move on him.
It was Stricker who ultimately applied the heat, just a day after seemingly shooting himself out of it in a head-to-head matchup. While Harrington shot a 66 on Saturday to open a five-shot lead on the field, Stricker’s 73 left him eight shots behind the leader with only one round to go.
“Saturday really hurt; it put me behind the eight ball,” Stricker said. “I know how difficult it is to win a tournament, let alone a U.S. Open.”
Shooting a Sunday low 65 with six birdies in his last 11 holes, Stricker posted 9-under in the clubhouse and had to stick around until the very end to see if Harrington could best it. Harrington had fallen from a high of 11-under to 9-under himself until he poured in a 35-footer for birdie on the short par-4 15th hole. He covered a lot of ground with his putter on long two putts each of the last three holes, saving par from 6 feet on 17 before making a testy 3-footer to win it on 18.
“I made him sweat it out a little bit towards the end, which was a goal of mine, and he handled it,” said Stricker, who has won four senior majors in his last 11 starts. “I knew, if I could get up there and put a little pressure on him and get to that 9-under number, you just never know. And it did. I had to watch it all the way to the end.
“Hats off to (Pádraig). He played great. I played with him yesterday. He played great. It was close, but he was the better player this week.”
Harrington held it together to win his first PGA Tour Champions event when the moment could have slipped away from him.
“When it got very tight, my caddie just kept reminding me that, if we were told we were going to be in this position with a one-shot lead on Sunday when we arrived here … we'd be very happy,” Harrington said. “I had to take it as an opportunity the last couple of holes.
“I think it's harder … it is very hard with a five-shot lead. You're definitely very defensive. The last couple of holes, I suppose when I got back to a one-shot lead, I was still somewhat defensive, but it's a position you want to be in.
“I didn't enjoy hitting that putt on the last from three feet, but you just have to accept it. If you want to win tournaments, you've got to put yourself out there. It could have been bad, but I got the glory instead.”
The glory is Harrington’s first victory in a USGA championship. He’d finished top-10 five times in the U.S. Open, including a career-best T4 in 2012.
“I think it's special for me to win this one just because I've never won a USGA event,” said Harrington. “I think that adds more than if you could turn around and win a different senior major. But because I was never a U.S. Open champion or a junior champion, it's great to come and win the senior one. It adds something that I never had in my career.”
The victory earns Harrington exemptions into the next 10 U.S. Senior Opens, but more importantly a spot in the 2023 U.S. Open at Los Angeles Country Club. It will be his 17th U.S. Open start, but his first since 2013.
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