Pádraig Harrington may have three Senior majors – two U.S. Senior Opens and the ISPS Senior Open Championship – to go with the three majors he picked off in 2007 and 2008, but the Senior PGA Championship continues to elude him.
It’s not for the want of trying either. He finished runner-up to Steve Stricker in a playoff loss at PGA Frisco in 2023, and was bridesmaid again when he finished a shot shy of Angel Cabrera at Congressional last year, and though he’s yet to pick off a PGA Tour Champions victory in 2026, he feels his game is in good shape as he completes his final pre-tournament preparations at The Concession Golf Club in Florida.
“Yeah, I’m reasonably happy where I’m at,” he said. “It’s Tuesday. I’m not panicking. Waiting to see what comes out on Thursday. So, yeah, I seem to be in decent form, so we just kind of have to wait and see.”
At 54, Harrington may not be one of the young guns on the over-50s circuit anymore, but he doesn’t feel that way and actually thinks that the additional few years of experience may be an advantage over the fresh arrivals.
“I still feel like a new guy,” he grinned. “Yeah, look, I suppose there’s new guys coming all the time, and I know when I started, I was told that there’s a kind of sweet spot 54 to 56 or 57, and then it kind of gets hard after that.
“Look, the thing about golf tournaments, you can only manage what you are doing. You know, you’ve got play well, and then you’ve got to get the breaks with your own game. Trying to manage what anybody else is doing or wondering how they’re doing or anything like that, yeah, it’s well out of your control.
“I feel like my game is good enough to be in contention, and if I can get in contention, then it’s about making some good decisions, you know, not getting any bad breaks and maybe getting one or two good breaks.
“You know, it’s about controlling what I’m doing and not looking over my shoulder so much at anybody else.”
Despite being one of the longer hitters on the Champions Tour, Harrington doesn’t feel that length will be a considerable advantage this week as the course set up is going to force him to be a little more conservative off the tee. This means that it will be a taxing week mentally as decision making and acceptance of the odd bad outcome will be crucial if he’s to find himself in contention on Sunday.
“Yeah, this is interesting,” he explained. “The tees are obviously a long way up, but you still end up hitting to the same driving area. It’s not like you can hit past it. Any time you try and challenge the tee shots, there’s a lot more trouble if you do, if you try and hit it down there.
“It’s a lot of strategy off the tee. Pick your battles, which means the second shots are going to be a little bit longer. Obviously we know the greens are extremely difficult, so just patience there. Patience with where you’re playing to, what shots you’re hitting. Accepting some of the misses that will feel a little bit hard done by, and hopefully having a good short game on top of it.
“But I think as much as you would like to play great physically and do that, I think this would be a very strong week for the mental game, both in decision-making and in acceptance of the outcome, because there’s some big slopes on those greens that you can be not just marginally off, but maybe just a slight change of wind, and you could be 10, 15 feet from the hole, and it runs off the green, and you’re left with a very risk/reward chip shot.
“It’s not that the chip shots are impossible. It’s just that there’s a lot of — if you take them on, you could end up back at your feet. Yeah, it’s going to be a strong test mentally this week, no doubt about it.
“I’m looking forward to playing the golf course to see how it plays, as I said, but at the moment it’s not a lot of drivers off the tee. It’s a lot of laying up and being patient and then the rest of it will be, I suppose, how they set up the pin positions, how difficult, how tight and that sort of challenge.
“Some of the issues will be, you know, if you are too conservative off the tee, you’re kicking the can down the road and making the second shot very difficult, but you know, at the moment for me anyway it’s certainly not a lot of drivers. Probably if I start hitting drivers, it means I’m not doing so well (smiling).”
Dealing with injuries is part and parcel of a professional golfers life, and Harrington is no different. Playing practice rounds in shorts, the knee brace he wears is conspicuous, but it’s a problem that he’s been dealing with for some time and he’s learned how to manage his body to ensure that the niggles remain just that.
“This is just the way it is,” he sais. “If you want to compete and you’re trying to physically, you know, give it 100% every day, you’re going to have issues. I work out in the gym. I do my stretching. I have my physio, but you know, there’s plenty of natural attrition as you go along.
“My right knee – in 2020 I was told I was going to have to have surgery sooner rather than later. Six years later I haven’t had that surgery. I keep looking at those things that come in on Instagram saying they’ve cured how to grow back cartilage, and I’m hoping I can wait another two or three years so that something like that will come along.
“Look, I can manage it. Like, I have a disc replaced in my neck, which is way better now than when I was in my career. I probably – in like 33% of my tournaments I had a serious neck injury while I was playing.
“Players deal with injuries. You just get on with it. Usually nobody knows about it. You just keep playing through it and working around it.
“I would suggest to every person that every person needs to find the choke point in their body. When you’re a golfer, you’ll have one golfer who complains about lower back, one who has a neck problem, one who has a wrist problem, one has a knee. Everyone seems to have one point in their body that takes that pressure. You better find it quick and spend 50% of all your training focusing on that area to keep it at bay.
“You know, there’s no point in doing somebody else’s training program that you see on Instagram. You got to do the program — you got to hit the area that you have an issue with. Mine was always my neck. The knee is just old age. I still to this day — you know, I’ve gone and worked with Tom House on my shoulder work programs. A lot of my exercises are focused on keeping my upper back and my shoulders and scaps stable because of those issues.
“We’re all dealing with it out here, and it would be a surprise if somebody wasn’t, especially if you’re somebody like me who practices a lot and is trying to go full tilt at it pretty much all the time.
“Yeah, it’s just natural out here. We know how to work around it and get on with it. As I said, I struggle a little bit with my knees, but I can play golf with it. I’m going for physio now when I finish up here and just manage it and get in the gym and try and strengthen up. Just normal stuff really.”
Harrington will play the opening two rounds alongside fellow three-time Senior major-winner Alex Cejka and Ernie Els, winner of five major championships during his prime and a one-time Senior major-winner.
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