Pádraig Harrington will go home early from Bahrain after a two-over-par round of 74 left him on the outside looking in at the Bapco Energies Bahrain Championship where Calum Hill has taken a commanding lead.
A disappointing end to Thursday’s opening round left the three-time major winning Dubliner straddling the overnight cutline, but despite early struggles off the tee, he managed to play his opening four holes of round two in one-under thanks to some trademark short-game wizardry.
He’d complete his opening nine – the back nine – having found just one of seven fairways, but not without it costing him and he went from fairway bunker to fairway bunker on the long par-4 17th and ended up making double which saw him turn at one-over on the day and level-par overall.
Needing to make a move on the front nine, his driving improved but a three-putt from the fringe on two and a wild pull on his second shot to the par-5 third ended up resulting in back-to-back bogeys and though he’d birdie the fifth and ninth holes, missed birdie chances on six and eight and a bogey on seven left him four shots outside the cutline at +1 when play was suspended for darkness with a few groups still on the course.
While Harrington struggled, it was plain sailing for Calum Hill who stormed into a four-shot lead after shooting a career-best 61 and equalling the course record.
The Scot fired 11 birdies, including five across his final six holes, to reach 16-under in a flawless performance at Royal Golf Club in the Kingdom of Bahrain.
His stellar round fell just one shot short of claiming the Course Record presented by Nexo prize, which would’ve seen him take home a pot of $70,000 should he have beaten the mark set by Brandon Robinson Thompson in last year’s event.
In his 140th start on the DP World Tour, Hill took advantage of still morning conditions, opening with five birdies on the front nine before tallying another six on the back. Two long-range putts, both measuring over 30 feet, at the 16th and 17th reflected his magical round.
Hill, in search of his third DP World Tour title after already having the 2025 Joburg Open and 2021 Cazoo Classic to his name, heads into the weekend with a handy buffer over Germany’s Freddy Schott.
“Today was really good,” Hill said afterwards. “I started off really well and then I had a few bonus putts from really long range to really go in and it just kept making birdies. It was nice.
“That’s obviously my best round in competitive golf, in tournament golf. I haven’t kept track of what I’ve shot in practice, but I think that’s up there as one of the best rounds I’ve played.
“I knew the course record was 11-under, so I knew I needed to hole my last shot (to break the course record) and it looked very good in the air. I thought it had a chance but just long, but it was nice to finish off with a birdie as well. Very happy.
“Just to try to hit it on land (Hill’s focus on the 18th tee). The final two holes are not the nicest of tee shots. We’ve played them strategically shorter than maybe some other people in the field and just left a longer iron in. So I hit 5 wood off the tee but it was down the middle, and then a 9 iron in.
“The forecast looked like it was going to be windy this morning, but we did okay. It was maybe 10 miles an hour for most of it, and it’s just started to pick up now a little bit. We had it quite windy yesterday, so it felt much easier yesterday as a whole, and it’s nice having the last few holes down wind. It played in our favour, I felt like today wasn’t too bad and we took advantage of that.
“Yesterday felt equally as good, I just made a few little errors. I had a few bonus putts go in today and took out what I did wrong yesterday. As long as I can keep learning from what I’ve done and just keep applying it, hopefully I’ve got some good rounds still left in me.”
Schott, Thursday’s co-leader, backed up his opening round 65 with a 67, moving to 12-under-par. The 24-year-old sits in second, thanks to five birdies, two bogeys and an eagle, three shots ahead of Frenchman Ugo Coussaud in third.
Coussard, who teed off on the 10th, completed his round with back-to-back birdies, picking up five shots and carding just one bogey to move into solo third at -9.
11 players share fourth on eight-under, including South African trio JC Ritchie, Casey Jarvis and Brandon Stone, Spanish triad Sergio Garcia, Nacho Elvira and Alejandro Del Rey, Dutchman Joost Luiten, India’s Shubhankar Sharma, New Zealand’s Daniel Hillier, Frenchman Julien Guerrier and Italy’s Andrea Pavan.
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