How might you summarize Padraig Harrington’s inaugural visit to Colorado? Satisfying could do the trick.
The 53-year-old Irishman, in the state for the first time in his life for the 2025 U.S. Senior Open, battled the East Course at The Broadmoor and the tricky elevation calculations superbly, and on Sunday he won his second U.S. Senior Open title.
Harrington closed with a three-under 67 in Colorado Springs, Colo., which got him to 11 under overall and was good for a one-shot victory over Stewart Cink.
Harrington’s first U.S. Senior Open title came in 2022, when he beat Steve Stricker by a stroke at Saucon Valley Country Club in Pennsylvania. He’s yet to slow down. Since that victory he’s added nine more PGA Tour Champions wins to his resume. This is his first since he won the Simmons Bank Championship in October 2024.
“Every time you come back out and you win, the nerves are there, the tension’s there, you don’t want to mess up,” Harrington said. “So, yeah, it’s very exciting to come out here and win, but I think what winning a U.S. Senior Open or any tournament on the Champions Tour, it kind of validates your career. It validates the past in a lot of ways.”
Harrington, Cink and Mark Hensby shared the 54-hole lead at eight under, although at the turn on Sunday it was Harrington and Cink three under for the day and tied at 11 under, and with Hensby, one over, falling off the pace.
Miguel Angel Jiménez started the day five off the lead and then bogeyed his opening hole, but he was brilliant in the hours after. He made birdies on 3, 4, 6 and 9 to charge up the leaderboard and made four in his first seven on the back nine.
After a par on 17, he went to the 18th one back of Harrington and tied with Cink, but a miss into the left rough cost him dearly. He deliberated for a while but ultimately decided he was not confident enough to take on the water-guarded green with his lie, so he punched out, hit his third shot on but failed to make the par save. His six-under 64 gave him the clubhouse lead at nine under, but it didn’t hold.
Behind him, Cink missed a good birdie chance on 17 and Harrington got up and down for par, which gave Harrington a one-shot lead over Cink (and two clear of Jimenez) on the 72nd tee.
It had been an eventful week for Harrington already. On Friday, an argument between Harrington and on-course reporter Roger Maltbie went viral, and on Saturday, Harrington chipped in for birdie from 30 yards away on the par-4 18th. But Sunday would be remembered for a trophy.
While Cink had a shorter second into the 18th, it was Harrington who knocked his approach closer. Cink missed his long birdie try and settled for par. Harrington, from about 10 feet away, barely missed his birdie attempt but settled for a tap-in par, one-stroke win and, most importantly — his second senior major title.
