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Clutch City: Harrington wins PGA
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• Garcia falls short in another major• Click here for Golfweek’s PGA Championship coverage
BLOOMFIELD TOWNSHIP, Mich. – Padraig Harrington has duped us again, this time not by a flick of his sprained wrist, but only by acting like he was sick.
It was on Friday at the PGA Championship that Harrington walked off the course after making a second consecutive bogey and told us that he had a hangover, appearing at that point about as burned out as Oakland Hills South. He used words and phrases that should have made his head doctor Bob Rotella ran for the hills.
“I have or I did or I just ran out of steam,” said Harrington. He had just hit the “biggest block-hook” to bogey No. 8 and the “biggest pull-hook” to bogey No. 9, his final hole of the day.
“It was a struggle for me,” he said. “I did my best to be ready for the week but clearly I’m not. What can I say? The harder I tried the worse it got. I haven’t got the focus this week. I’m just not with it. Obviously, I’m still just having a hangover after winning The Open.”
So it was on Sunday on the outskirts of the Motor City that Harrington raced around another dangerous major track and proved to the golf world that his engine has been built to last, finishing off one 4-under 66 in the morning and following with another one in the afternoon.
And all this after telling us he had run out of gas.
Harrington played 27 holes and came from three shots behind Sunday, making putts of 12 to 18 feet on each of the last three holes to win his second major in a row, beating Sergio Garcia (68) and Ben Curtis (71) by two shots.
He became the first European to win the PGA since Tommy Armour in 1930 and the first European to ever win the British Open and PGA Championship in the same year. He also gave us the chance to talk about the possibility of the first-ever PaddySlam, which will gain more steam come next April.
“I’m in position to win the next one,” said Harrington. “That’s all I can say about that.”
For the record, that also makes three of the last six majors for Harrington – “That’s Tiger-like,” said Curtis – and gives world leaders reason to put golf on a pedestal when it comes to the global energy crisis.
Golf has gone green. We can say this not only because Harrington is Irish or that he became the first Irishman to win the PGA Championship, but because he has won another one of golf’s biggest events despite at one point in the week running on empty.
Beware the injured golfer, we’ve been told. Trevor Immelman won the Masters after having a tumor removed from his back just months prior. Tiger Woods won the U.S. Open on one leg, and then Harrington won the British Open last month after spraining his wrist earlier that week hitting into an impact bag.
We didn’t realize the PGA’s winning ailment until Harrington was sitting next to the Wanamaker Trophy over an hour after double-fist pumping on the 72nd hole: dehydration.
Harrington said that after the miserable end to Friday’s second-round 74, he had a discussion with his trainer about his coordination, which had felt out of whack.
“It was possible that I was dehydrated,” said Harrington. “And that’s what was the lack of coordination.”
He said that gave him something to focus on, which drives Harrington more than anything on the golf course. He said he’s won “many a tournament” with the feeling that he wasn’t swinging as well as he could, which includes his triumph at Royal Birkdale with one wrist tied behind his back.
“I actually struggle when things are comfortable,” said Harrington. “It’s something that I work with with Bob Rotella,” he said. “I’m better off. I definitely have a little bit of the, ‘I want to be fighting it.’ ”
Harrington said he paid close attention the rest of the weekend to keeping himself hydrated. The only time he really stayed away from the water was on the par-4 16th hole late Sunday afternoon, after watching Garcia’s approach shot catch land short and roll back into the drink fronting the green. Harrington followed by pulling his approach into the left bunker, but sank a 12-footer to save par and pull even with Garcia, who saved bogey from the drop zone.
“There was no sort of anything but knocking it in the hole,” said Harrington.
His next shot seemed to get as close to the cup on the 17th hole as any ball had all week. However, thanks to the rainstorms that pushed most of the third round to Sunday morning, Oakland Hills had become a bit more receptive. Harrington’s 5-iron landed 8 feet from the tucked-right pin position.
“And I kind of felt I had won the PGA at that stage,” Harrington said. That was until Garcia slammed his tee shot to 4 feet, and so Harrington’s thinking changed slightly.
“I knew that I had the opportunity to get the putt in first,” he said. “And that was important. I knew if I holed this, I probably would win the PGA. If I missed, Sergio would probably win the PGA.
“So it was down to that.”
Harrington, who defeated Garcia in a playoff to win his first British Open last year at Carnoustie, drilled it. Garcia’s putt caught the left lip and spun out, unveiling another nightmare for El Nino.
“There’s guys that get a little bit fortunate, they get in contention, in a major, and manage to get things going their way, either because they play well or because somebody else comes back,” said Garcia. “And unfortunately, it hasn’t happened to me.”
Both Harrington and Garcia found trouble off the 18th tee, but ended up with par putts. Harrington, who had found the green despite advancing his second shot only 60 yards out of a fairway bunker into the rough, went first from 15 feet. The putt broke twice and fell into the cup. He fist-pumped twice, and then Garcia lined up his first putt of the week that didn’t matter.
“Unfortunately, it hasn’t happened,” said Garcia. “That doesn’t mean that I’m not on the right track.”
He’s just on Padraig’s. Just like everyone else.
Posted: 8/10/2008
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