Padraig Harrington isn’t much of a leaderboard watcher. So when, in the final round of the Senior Open Championship on Sunday, Thomas Bjorn, playing in the penultimate pairing behind Harrington, birdied the 11th and 12th holes to get within three of Harrington’s 13-under lead, Harrington hadn’t the foggiest.
“The only time I saw a leaderboard was on 18,” Harrington said after the round. “I asked Ronan [Flood, his caddie] on 17 what was my lead, and never looked at a leaderboard. Was fully focused on what I was doing.”
We can debate in another space the benefits and drawbacks of peeking scores down the stretch, but Harrington had a plan and he stuck to it.
He would bogey the 17th, but no matter — at that point, he still held a comfortable lead and his first Senior Open title was in his clutches. After a par on 18, Harrington finished three clear of Bjorn and Justin Leonard to become one of just five players to have won both the Open Championship and Senior Open Championship.
Another fun sidebar to Harrington’s victorious Sunday at Sunningdale? Rory McIlroy was there to witness it.
Or part of it, anyway.
McIlroy, who recently moved into a new house in nearby Wentworth, popped by Sunningdale’s Old Course to take in some of the fourth-round action. In dark sunglasses and with neatly cropped hair, he strolled the property and posed for photos with fans. Harrington’s reaction to having the reigning Masters champion in attendance?
“I didn’t see him out there,” he told reporters. “Was he out there?”
When a reporter joked, “He was not in a beard but incognito,” Harrington said, “I had the head down all day. I never saw anybody. I had no idea.”
After his win, Harrington, who in previous Opens had twice finished runner-up and once 5th, spoke of the importance of finally prevailing in this championship at the still relatively young age of 53.
“You start finishing in those positions, and all of a sudden it becomes a bit of a millstone around your neck,” he said. “You want to get this win across the line early. You know, the golden age for winning on the Champions tour is kind of up to about 55, 56. So didn’t want to leave it a few more years or it would get tougher and tougher.”
On a different level, McIlroy can relate.
