When Pádraig Harrington signed his final round card at the Senior Open at Carnoustie he shot a level-par 72. But it could have been anything.
The 52-year-old endured a rollercoaster Sunday and eventually managed to climb into the top-5 as KJ Choi won his maiden senior major title.
Harrington was six shots off the pace heading into the final day, the same scenario he faced back in 2007 when he won the Claret Jug at this very venue. His chances were up in smoke almost immediately when he started triple bogey, double bogey.
Remarkably, he rallied with three birdies in four holes before dropping another shot at the 8th. Harrington roared back with three successive birdies from the 12th and added another on the 16th before carding just his second bogey of the day on 17.
In the end, it was a two-under total, it could have been five or six-under, it could have been five or six-over but the three-time major winner was happy not to rue his horror start with Choi pulling away to win on ten-under-par.
“I battled yesterday. I flushed it today. I couldn’t hit it worse yesterday. Couldn’t hit it better today,” summarised Harrington.
“So it’s a crazy game. You know, I actually didn’t know what score I was shooting at the end; my head was so messed up.
“Look, the bunkers are evil. That’s just it. Yeah, just seems like a quadruple whammy of let’s make it difficult in the bunkers this week.
“So I got caught out those first couple homes. My ball just dropped in on the first. Just the difference, obviously the way they congeal the sand up, it won’t run into the bunker. It stops at the edge. Actually, I had never seen it done — well, I actually had seen it done before but it was quite nasty.
“Yeah, look, that’s what happens in this game. I knew I had to push today. I think even after that, the couple of eagle chances, I had three good eagle chances there. I could have slipped a few more putts in.
“But the good news for me is K.J. has run away with it, which is a nice thing. I would hate to be finishing up today and 6-under par, 7-under par was winning; it was would have been a disappointing day. 2-under, it makes no difference now.”
Choi, a former world number five and PLAYERS Champion carded a final round of 70 as he also overcame an iffy start of his own to win by two shots from Richard Green with four birdies and an eagle in six holes midway through his round.
Meanwhile, 2022 Senior Open winner and 2011 Open champion Darren Clarke carded a final round of 72 to share 13th place on one-over while Peter Lawrie finished on plus eight.
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