Another week on the PGA Tour Champions, another showcase for Padraig Harrington near the top of the leaderboard.
The 53-year-old Irishman has notched nine wins on the senior circuit since his debut season in 2022, and at this week’s Senior PGA Championship at Congressional CC, he’s once again in the hunt, two shots behind leader co-leaders Vijay Singh, Cameron Percy and Y.E. Yang at the tournament’s halfway point.
Harrington has gained a reputation as a font of knowledge and insight in interviews, frequently offering thoughtful takes on the swing, the state of the game and even parenting. And Friday was no exception, as Harrington shared his perspective on why focusing on hitting fairways and greens isn’t always the best strategy during a round.
“I think one of the worst things you can do on the golf course is judge and analyze,” Harrington said. “After, let’s say, 26 holes, I knew I’d missed two greens this week and hit a couple of par 5s. That was horrible information to have in your head. You shouldn’t be aware of how many fairways or how many greens because we don’t play fairways and greens, we play score.
Padraig Harrington criticizes Bryson DeChambeau’s ‘bizarre’ Masters strategy
“Would you rather be 15 feet away from the hole on the fringe or 20 feet away from the hole on the green?” Harrington continued. “Fifteen feet on the fringe, but you’ve missed the green. You see what I’m saying? You get caught up — when you’re playing well like that, you get caught up in hitting fairways and hitting greens, which isn’t always what you want to do on a windy day.
“Sometimes you’ve just got to get the job done, and over the last eight holes I was definitely into getting it done.”
Windy conditions made Congressional a challenging test on Friday, and Harrington said the difficulty eventually forced him to forget about stats and focus on simply getting the ball in the hole. During the second half of Friday’s round, Harrington birdied three of his final five holes.
“Every day should be just a score,” he said. “You should never be analyzing a round as you’re playing it. There’s no doubt, the fact that I knew I’d hit lots of fairways and greens meant I was analyzing my round. In a perfect world you wouldn’t even know what score you’re shooting, you’d just be playing. I think for the last eight holes, I was, yeah, get it done. That was the main thing. Avoid any of the big misses and be clever with your misses. I think I did that and hit a few nice shots, as well, to make some birdies.”
Harrington will continue his quest to claim his 10th senior tour victory and second senior major on Saturday. You can tune in to the third-round Senior PGA Championship action at 3 p.m. ET on NBC.
