Tag: Padraig Harrington

Padraig Harrington pulls off three-peat at Dick’s Sporting Goods Open: ‘It’s very exciting’

As for Padraig Harrington’s body of work through Sunday’s closing round? Let’s label that appropriately workmanlike.

BINGHAMTON, N.Y. — The outcome, of course, made for a magnificent third consecutive Dick’s Sporting Goods Open victory. As for Padraig Harrington’s body of work through Sunday’s closing round? Let’s label that appropriately workmanlike.

The affable Irishman played En-Joie’s back nine in even-par, nevertheless posted a single-stroke win over Mike Weir to leave him 3-for-3 in Endicott since celebrating a 50th birthday.

Harrington closed with 4-under 68 to finish the 54-hole event 15-under, with Weir coming in at 67. Third place was shared by Mark Hensby (66), Ken Duke (68) and Ken Tanigawa (70) at 13-under.

Stephen Ames, 36-hole co-leader on rounds of 64 and 69, faded from realistic contention on the back and shared sixth after a 71.

“It’s very exciting,” Harrington said. “Coming into the week people say, ‘Oh, are you going to do a three-peat,’ and it’s a lot easier to say it than do it. So yeah, I was trying to keep my expectations dab even though I do like the golf course. I know it suits me. I think it was managing other people’s expectations and trying to keep myself in a nice place.

“I probably didn’t play as well on Wednesday and Thursday as I would have wanted it, but I got gradually better as the tournament went on. Certainly today on a windier day it was a tricky day to be out in the last group. I certainly got a few good breaks. A few things went against me, but I got a few good breaks as well to even out the day. It was just my day.”

As for that back nine?

He opened by inexplicably chopping his second from the middle of the 10th fairway into the drink and made bogey, and his lone birdie thereafter came via a superb drive and approach finessed prudently to a bit above the hole at 15.

At the come-and-get-me 16th, he ground out par from well past the green near the 17th tee box. At 17, he yanked a 9-iron tee ball but got up and down from nasty rough left, holing a putt of seven or so feet. At the last – with Weir having posted 14-under – Harington carried his drive 317 yards to an ideal position and proceeded to uneventfully two-putt.

“I was really trying to make one more birdie,” he said. “I knew I had a one-shot lead, but if I could get it to two shots, I felt that’s comfortable. I was going after it on 16 and we were thinking 3-wood. Then we said, ‘Well, get driver to the back of the green.’ And obviously I pitched on hardpan rather than the soft part, went long and I was in – I wasn’t in the worst place in the world, but it was awkward when you’re leading the tournament.

“I think if I was one shot back, I would have given that a much better effort to get that up and down, but I was more concerned about not taking 5. And 17 was a little lapse in concentration; I was just drawing it into the pin, and I changed my target at the last moment and snatched that a bit.”

Weir, who assuredly will rue a shorty for par misfired at the 13th, made six birdies against that lone toe-stub. He has finished second in two goes at the Dick’s Sporting Goods Open.

Harrington, who made eagle at the third and birdies on the sixth, eighth and ninth:

— Made it eight wins on PGA Tour Champions in his 41st start at the age of 52 years, 9 months, 23 days.

— Joins Ames (2) and Ernie Els (2) as multiple winners this season.

— Became the first player to win the same PGA Tour Champions event in three consecutive seasons since 2014 DSGO winner Bernhard Langer at the Kaulig Companies Championship (2014-16).

Endicott, no doubt, will remain special to Harrington.

“This is what the Champions Tour is all about,” he said. “When we come to venues like this, Broome County, old PGA Tour stops, dare I say it being outgrown or forgotten about, they really come out for the Champions Tour. They love their golf, they come out, they have a great sponsor in Dick’s. The whole community, the fans come out, and we love being here.

“It’s great for us as players, we get to relive our past glories, hit shots under pressure, under stress, some good, some bad, so it’s really a perfect Champions Tour event. You have the atmosphere, you feel like you’re a kid back in the old days.”

Odds & Ends

— With birdies on six of his first nine holes (1-3 and 7-9), Hensby closed his first Dick’s Open with a 6-under 66 to finish T3 at 13-under. He played En-Joie’s front nine holes in an aggregate 12-under.

— Following a 7-under 65 in Round 2 to share the 36-hole lead at 11-under, Tanigawa closed his sixth Dick’s Open with a 2-under 70 to finish T3.

— In his sixth Dick’s Open start, 36-hole co-leader and Charles Schwab Cup No. 1 Stephen Ames shot 71 to finish T6 at 12-under. The finish becomes his ninth top-10 of the season (13 starts) and first in the Dick’s Open.

Top of The Board

Padraig Harrington 68-65-68 – 201

Mike Weir 68-67-67 – 202

Mark Hensby 70-67-66 – 203

Ken Duke 69-66-68 – 203

Ken Tanigawa 68-65-70 – 203

Billy Andrade 69-67-68 – 204

Miguel Angel Jimenez 68-68-68 – 204

Steve Allan 65-69-70 – 204

Stephen Ames 64-69-71 – 204

Robert Karlsson 70-71-64 – 205

Doug Barron 68-71-66 – 205

Bob Estes 70-64-71 – 205

Padraig Harrington is looking for a third straight Dick’s Open title on Sunday

Check out who’s in the lead group Sunday seeking to enhance a spectacular track record.

BINGHAMTON, N.Y. — Surprise, surprise. Check out who’s in the lead group Sunday seeking to enhance a spectacular track record in the Dick’s Sporting Goods Open.

Padraig Harrington closed a spotless round of 7-under 65 with birdies on En-Joie Golf Course’s final three holes Saturday to take a share of the 36-hole lead. Ken Tanigawa (65) and overnight leader Stephen Ames (69) will accompany Harrington in a group scheduled to leave the first tee at 10:36 a.m. Sunday.

Next-best through two rounds are Bob Estes, Paul Stankowski and Steve Allan, sharing fourth a shot off the top spot, with three others at 9-under. If a quartet at 8-under is within reach, perhaps keep an eye on Miguel Angel Jimenez, whose second-round 68 began with five successive birdies.

Sunday’s weather may not be pretty. Thunderstorms have been forecast with varying degrees of likelihood from early afternoon through the night. Due to that threat, it’ll be a two-tee start with the last groups off at 10:41 a.m.

Harrington’s eight senior tour rounds at En-Joie have all been in the 60s, with a high of 69 to open the 2023 event and a low of 63 to round out his second-consecutive win here. Entering Sunday, he is an aggregate 45 under par – the kind of comfort zone that figures to serve him well in the thick of the moment Sunday.

“Both rounds this week I finished strong. It’s been a bit of a surprise,” he said. “I was a little frustrated probably through nine holes today. My playing partners were going so low, I wasn’t holing the putts. Then, I don’t know if I was patient or things happened to go my way, but it was really nice to come home 5-under.

“This is one of those – there’s obviously a big bunch of people up on the leaderboard, but sometimes you’re three or four shots off the lead, you have a chance going into Sunday, but with so many people on the leaderboard, you really want to be very tightly up there. You want to be if not in the lead, close enough. One of those guys is going to go low tomorrow, so hopefully it will be me.”

Harrington is seeking to become the first player to win the same PGA Tour Champions event three consecutive seasons since Bernhard Langer achieved the feat at the Kaulig Companies Championship (2014-16).

Ames made five birdies – one of the gotta-be-kidding variety from rough left and perilously to the drink at the par-4 15th – against 10th- and 13th-hole bogeys. When holding a 36-hole lead/co-lead in 54-hole events, he is 6-for-9 converting for a win.

“Everything was pretty solid,” he said. “I didn’t make as many putts that I’d like to, not like yesterday, but I think a little bit of the rain kind of changed the greens a little bit because they got a little softer, so we had more footprints through the greens. So, I guess altogether it was a solid round, got it around nicely.”

As for Sunday, given anticipated inclement weather?

“Well, another early start to the week, which is kind of interesting because they said rain today, too, and we never got it, and it had the same on Friday, and we never got it. But we’re getting some tomorrow apparently, so I’m not going to elaborate on that one.”

Round 1 leader Stephen Ames finished 3-under for the day and in a three-way tie for first at 11-under for the Dick’s Open, June 22, 2024.
Tanigawa, who stood 9-under for the day with two eagles through 13 holes, stumbled with a bogey at the 14th and a double at the 15th. He rebounded with birdie at 16.

“I started out great, I got it to 9-under and just hit a lot of good shots, made the putts to capitalize on those good shots,” he said. “Overall, very happy, very good round for myself.”

He hit the first 12 greens in regulation.

“Ball in the fairway, for sure. That always helps, right?,” he said. “I had probably good numbers, which helped. Just when you attack the pins, it kind of makes sense with those numbers, and if not, just kind of hit middle of the greens if you can.”

Odds & Ends

— The start of Round 2 was delayed 45 minutes because of fog.

— Tanigawa’s lone top-10 finish in five previous Dick’s Open starts was a T6 in 2022

— As a PGA Tour rookie, Estes lost in a playoff to Mike Hulbert in the 1989 B.C. Open at En-Joie.

— Chad Campbell withdrew following an opening-round 68 that featured eagles on two of his first five holes, citing the illness of a family member. The 50-year-old Texan was playing his third senior tour event.

Top of the Board

Padraig Harrington 68-65 – 133

Ken Tanigawa 68-65 – 133

Stephen Ames 64-69 – 133

Bob Estes 70-64 – 134

Paul Stankowski 67-67 134

Steve Allan 65-69 – 134

Ken Duke 69-66 – 135

Mike Weir 68-67 – 135

Three is a magic number: Ernie Els, Padraig Harrington each looking for three straight titles

Threes are potentially wild for the 17th edition of the Dick’s Sporting Goods Open.

Threes are potentially wild for the 17th edition of the Dick’s Sporting Goods Open when tournament play begins Friday at En-Joie Golf Course.

There is Padraig Harrington, winner of each of the last two PGA Tour Champions events in Endicott. And there is Ernie Els, winner of the most recent two Tour events anywhere.

Those possibilities will assuredly be front and center as anticipation builds through the week of preliminary activity in what will be uncomfortably steamy temperatures throughout Broome County.

One annual highlight of the event will be staged Friday night following opening-round play. That’ll be a concert featuring Luke Bryan, maker of 30 No. 1 hits and five-time entertainer of the year.

“Stunningly spectacular” was applied on this website last year, when Harrington beat up En-Joie’s second nine Sunday — five birdies, one eagle for a 7-under 28 — to complete a round of 9-under 63 and become the event’s first back-to-back champion.

Joe Durant, 18-hole leader by three and Sunday’s pace-setter for much of the back nine, went 64-69-66 as runner-up, a shot better than Els, whose closing bogey left him a 68 and 16-under total.

Padraig Harrington of Ireland holds the trophy after winning the DICK’S Sporting Goods Open at En-Joie Golf Club on June 25, 2023 in Endicott, New York. (Photo by Drew Hallowell/Getty Images)

Els won the June 7-8-9 American Family Insurance Championship in a playoff with Steve Stricker, a week after topping the field at the Principal Charity Classic in Des Moines (62-68-65). He is a five-time PGA Tour Champions winner with a stellar record at En-Joie.

“We’ve got an interesting storyline. What’s going to happen: Is Ernie Els going to win three in a row? Or is Padraig going to threepeat?” said tournament director John Karedes.

As for which would be more compelling? “I don’t know. You’ve got Padraig, who’s just an awesome guy, inducted into the World Golf Hall of Fame (June 10), and you’ve got Ernie who I believe has two (top-threes) here.

“We’ve had guys like Ernie and Miguel and Darren Clarke who’ve come just oh so close. Oh, and let’s not forget about the sixty-some-year-old, Bernhard. When I went on social media and saw he’d gone a six-week period and all he could do was chip and putt, I told my colleagues, ‘You guys watch out. If this guy can only work on his short game for six weeks, you think about what that short game is going to be like when he comes back and he starts playing.’ What’d he shoot, 17-under a couple weeks ago?

“This is a course you know he can play well, it’s relatively flat so that should take pressure off any residuals he’s got from the injury.

“There are some great potential stories.”

Odds & ends

— Stephen Ames, who’ll play his sixth Dick’s Sporting Goods Open this week, has won events this season by four- and three-stroke margins, respectively. That ranks him co-first and co-second in 2024. Ames has also built the largest 36-hole lead (three strokes).

— Low start by a winner this year? Els went 10-under 62 in the Principal Charity Classic and Harrington went 8-under 63 in the Hoag Classic.

— Most consecutive years with a win on Tour? Harrington and Steven Alker (2022-24).

Lynch: As Padraig Harrington enters the Hall of Fame, a generation of Tour pros could learn much from his example

Golf could use more dedication, decorum and decency. Harrington exemplifies all these.

PINEHURST, N.C. — In the early days of his career — when he’d accumulated just a few of his 30-odd worldwide wins but none of his major championships and was on no one’s radar for the World Golf Hall of Fame, which he enters today — Padraig Harrington took pride in the fact that there were corners of Ireland in which he was better known for being Paddy Harrington’s son.

Harrington the elder, who died in 2005, was a footballer of some repute, but Gaelic games are an amateur sport so he worked as a cop for the Garda Siochána, Ireland’s police force. His team twice reached All-Ireland finals, the equivalent of a Super Bowl, losing both. By contrast, Brendan Lowry (father of Shane) was on a winning team in 1982 and probably hasn’t had to buy a drink in his home county since. Even against that fervent backdrop, Padraig Harrington would have to admit now that there’s not a village in the land in which he isn’t the best-known member of his clan.

And villagers from Mizen Head to Malin Head don’t need the Hall of Fame to tell them that.

Halls of Fame aren’t really a thing in Ireland. In the United States, regardless of the sport, HOFs are often a subject of heated debate about the appropriateness of the criteria or the admissions and omissions among its members. Golf’s is no different. Most folks deserving of a spot have gotten there, some via the express lane (Ernie Els and Phil Mickelson both won majors after being inducted in their early ‘40s), and some condemned to arrive on the slow bus.

Golfweek Q&A: First-ballot Hall of Fame talker Padraig Harrington shares wit and wisdom on day of induction into World Golf Hall of Fame

Peggy Kirk Bell, for example. She was a charter member of the LPGA Tour and a legendary teacher at Pine Needles, her family’s resort five miles east of Pinehurst, where the new Hall of Fame building debuts during this week’s U.S. Open. Bell was inducted in 2019, three years after she died at age 95. The 2024 HOF class includes seven deceased founders of the LPGA Tour who aren’t already in. One of them, Shirley Spork, passed two years ago. She was 94. Also being inducted is Tom Weiskopf, who left us in ’22 at 79. They aren’t the only new inductees who won’t be alive to give speeches Monday evening. Golf’s Hall is so inclined to posthumous awards that one feels a little extra gratitude when it chooses an honoree who is deserving and above ground.

With Padraig Harrington, the Hall got it right, and at the right time.

I first interviewed him almost 20 years ago at a hotel in suburban New York, days before he won the Barclays Classic. Our photographer brought a vintage box camera, and immediately Harrington fixated on it, utterly intrigued by its inner workings. It was my introduction to one of his defining characteristics: an insatiable curiosity about the world around him. That attribute would seem incompatible with another of his notable character traits — an unshakeable confidence that his considered viewpoint is correct. That combination turned a decent amateur into a world-beater and one of the game’s most beloved figures.

During that ’05 interview, Harrington told me that every January he’d fly to Sandy Lane resort in Barbados for an extensive practice session and on the journey he’d be terrified that everything he knew about golf had evaporated over the bleak Irish winter. I reminded him of that comment just before Christmas in 2007 as we sat at his kitchen table in Dublin. The Claret Jug was a few feet away.

“You know,” he said with a chuckle, “this was the first year I didn’t feel that starting my season.”

2008 Open Championship
2008 Open Championship winner Padraig Harrington poses before his press conference with the Claret Jug and his Wilson 5 wood that he hit his memorable shot on the 17th hole to within three feet at the 137th Open Championship at Royal Birkdale. (Photo: Stuart Franklin/Getty Images)

Even for the best golfers in the world, doubt is a constant companion. Determination is what defuses it, and they don’t make ‘em much more dogged than Padraig Harrington.

He won that Claret Jug in ugly fashion at Carnoustie, with two balls finding water on the way to a double-bogey on the final hole. But it was a gritty double, and he was flawless in the playoff. He stumbled late at the PGA Championship in ’08 too, but he left with the trophy. In those moments, he embodied a sentiment best expressed by Terence MacSwiney, a long-ago playwright and politician from his dad’s hometown: “It is not those who can inflict the most but those who can endure the most who will conquer.”

It was fitting that his foil in both of those majors was Sergio Garcia, who could never equal his nemesis in maturity, grace, grit or professionalism. But then Garcia never had to shag his own practice balls on a wet, windy driving range in the grim Scottish town of Largs, as Harrington did any time he went to work with his late coach, Bob Torrance.

In some important respects, Harrington is dissimilar to many of his peers in PGA Tour locker rooms. He says he never reads his own coverage so it won’t impact how he treats the media. His advice to rookies is this: give your cell phone number to your hometown golf writer and make sure they never get beaten on a story about you. You’d struggle to find a single player on Tour who adopts those precepts, but Harrington practices what he preaches. At the ’21 Ryder Cup in Wisconsin, he exhaustively answered questions in his daily captain’s press conference. On one day, as a PGA of America official announced an end to the session, he insisted on taking a final inquiry from an Irish newspaper reporter at the rear of the room. “He’s come a long way,” the skipper said with a smile.

More than anything else, Harrington is an evangelist for golf. He simply loves it, adores the thrill of a fine shot as much as the challenge posed by a lousy run. All of it feeds his soul. He cannot comprehend how anyone else might not love golf in the same way, and he’s determined to convert them to the cause. On the range at the 2014 PGA Championship at Valhalla, I watched slack-jawed as Harrington — on his knees on a towel — took full swings with a driver. It was a new drill he thought would help. Today he passes along similar gems to a huge audience on YouTube. All part of his personalized mission to grow the game.

For most Tour professionals, mimicking Padraig’s approach would be ruinous. The constant seeking, the unquenchable interest in swing theory, the tendency to look at conventional stats from unconventional angles in case a greater truth reveals itself, the giving more than he takes. But the current melancholy moment in which professional golf finds itself is a reminder that in so many respects — in dedication, in decorum, in disposition, in decency — this game would be a damn sight better off if more guys were like him.

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Padraig Harrington believes giving up this food for five years helped him reach the World Golf Hall of Fame

“Everything was about my performance in golf.”

Before there was Bryson DeChambeau, Padraig Harrington was the golfer who tried everything and anything for the slightest edge in his golf.

Remember when he wore the Golf Swing Shirt? Well, that just the least of Harrington’s outside-the-box efforts to transform his game into a three-time major winner and it paid off. On Monday evening, the 52-year-old Irishman officially will be inducted into the World Golf Hall of Fame.

Harrington outworked his competition, routinely spending 12-hour days training with instructor Bob Torrance. Like DeChambeau, he also was serious about his training and that extended to what he put in his temple.

“In my heyday, I wouldn’t have eaten a french fry. I didn’t eat a burger for years. I didn’t eat red meat at night for years. I went 10 years not doing this,” Harrington tells Golfweek in a recent Q&A. “I remember I hadn’t eaten a burger for years, and I went maybe five years when I won the Order of Merit in Valderrama in 2006.”
As Harrington recounted the story, he rushed to the airport to catch a flight home and by the time they got through security, the only place still open was Burger King.
“There was about six of us, my family were there and we came back with 12 burgers. We were all hungry. I know I had two of the Whoppers. I think that was the nicest piece of food I’ve ever eaten in my life. Bear in mind, I had not eaten a burger for at least five years before that.”

To give a sense of his dedication to his craft and how he has tempered his obsession ever-so-much as he has transitioned primarily to playing PGA Tour Champions, Harrington compared himself to Scottie Scheffler.

“Everything was about my performance in golf,” he said. “I still go to the gym. I work out relatively hard when I’m in the gym. But I was two tee times behind Scottie Scheffler at the PGA Championship when he got arrested. So 20 minutes after him on the time sheet. I was in my bed when he got arrested. I would have stayed, whatever, 15 minutes at the course. I was Scottie Scheffler. In that sense, I would have been there three and a half hours before my tee time. I would have done 45 minutes in my room. I would have done two different workouts then when I got to the golf course. I had one with my physio for 30 minutes and then I had a 15-minute dynamic warmup, so that’s an hour and a half before I got to the range, and then I’d practice until dark afterwards. You just can’t keep that up. You burn out, so you look for different things.

“I say this anytime I’m talking to businesspeople.  You get to that stage in your career, plenty of people feel like they should retire, and I often think, you’ve really got some great skill level to what you’re doing. You’ll never be an expert in anything else than what you’ve spent your last 30 years doing.  So what you need to do is stay in what you’re doing but get rid of the rubbish, whatever that is. Whatever is upsetting you. Whatever is something that’s not letting you use your experience and your genius.”

Harrington’s genius is getting the most out of his talent — even if it meant sacrificing burgers and fries.

Watch: Padraig Harrington hits incredible recovery shot from knees at Texas Children’s Houston Open

Always entertaining, Paddy.

HOUSTON — Padraig Harrington won last week’s Champions Tour event at the Hoag Classic in California. This week, the 52-year-old came to Memorial Park Golf Course to play on the PGA Tour at the Texas Children’s Houston Open.

He’s already hit his best shot of the week, coming in the first round.

After his tee shot went miles left on the par-5 16th hole, Harrington had no choice but to get on his knees to attempt his second shot. And he did so successfully, hitting it back into the fairway.

He then found the fringe right of the green and was able to get up and in for par.

 

Always entertaining, Paddy.

Through 16 holes, the Irishman sat even par for the tournament.

Padraig Harrington survives two final-round double bogeys to win Hoag Classic Newport Beach

Harrington is now 3-for-3 in closing out 36-hole leads on the Champions tour.

Padraig Harrington was looking to go 3-for-3 in closing out 36-hole leads on the PGA Tour Champions on Sunday at the Hoag Classic Newport Beach.

He started the final round at 12 under, a shot ahead of Thongchai Jaidee, who shot a 62 on Friday. Harrington ran into a big trouble twice but rebounded both times.

Harrington’s first trip-up was a double-bogey on the par-3 fourth hole which was playing 140 yards Sunday. He had a second double bogey on the par-4 16th hole, and that one proved more costly as it dropped him to 12 under and out of the lead a shot back of Jaidee and Miguel Angel Jimenez.

On the 191-yard, par-3 17th, however, Harrington hit his ball pin high and then drained the putt for a bounce-back birdie to tie for the lead once again. On 18, Harrington curled one around seemlingly all sides of the cup before it dropped for a closing birdie, setting off an extended fist pump from the Irishman.

Harrington closed with a 2-under 69 to win for the seventh time in 37 starts on the senior circuit. Jaidee was solo second a shot back. Jimenez was solo third, two shots back. Stephen Ames was solo fourth at 10 under.

Defending tournament champion Ernie Els was tied for 33rd. Jim Furyk made his 2024 season debut after recovering from a back injury and also tied for 33rd. Fred Couples withdrew after nine holes during the second round.

The tour stays in southern California for the Galleri Classic at Mission Hills Country Club in Rancho Mirage.

Until there’s a PGA Tour-LIV Golf resolution, Padraig Harrington suggests player transfers, outside teams in LIV events

“It doesn’t look like there will be any sort of golfing marriage in the near future,” said Harrington.

TUCSON, Ariz. — There appears to be no end in sight to the PGA Tour-LIV Golf rift and this past weekend was just another example of the prolonged standoff.

It was one of the four weekends in 2024 where a LIV event overlapped a signature event. There are 12 times in all this year where the two leagues will intersect.

Scottie Scheffler won the Arnold Palmer Invitational – a PGA Tour signature event that took some criticism for only having 69 players – and banked $4 million.

Meanwhile, Abraham Ancer hoisted a trophy after winning the LIV Golf Hong Kong event and pocketed $4 million.

“It doesn’t look like there will be any sort of golfing marriage in the near future,” said Padraig Harrington ahead of the 2024 Cologuard Classic on the PGA Tour Champions, who had some general thoughts about what can be done in the meantime.

“Why not have it a little bit like the old European Tour-PGA Tour, where there’s a little bit of competition. Certainly it’s good for the fans when there’s rivalries.”

Harrington played both tours for several years. Nowadays he plays mostly on the Champions tour but does dabble in some PGA Tour events. He’s already played twice on the “regular” tour in 2024 and so he sees firsthand the fallout.

“I go back to the PGA Tour and I’m right in amongst it,” he said. “A lot of my friends went to LIV, so I also have a good few guys out there who I would be friendly with.

“So I can see both sides of it. You know, in the end of the day, I played the majority of my career when there was two strong tours and there was a bit of rivalry and a bit of competition, so I’m not, I wouldn’t be averse to that being in the future where there’s two tours and who doesn’t love a little bit of competition?”

It could be argued that it’s not really a competition. The PGA Tour is a league that had to make its own money to pay its bills, whereas LIV Golf has a seemingly endless cash stream from the Saudi Arabian government’s Public Investment Fund.

“I think the biggest thing going forward for the PGA Tour, there has to be some way of capping, you know, can’t just steal all our players,” he said. “Players will always make a choice individually what’s right for them, but I think the Tour has to, there’s very few businesses in this world where there isn’t some sort of a noncompete sort of clause.

But until things are sorted out, Harrington pondered, why not have some kind of system of player movement.

“I’m not against, you know, some sort of a transfer back and forth,” he said. “I’m not against having a small amount of invites, and that cuts both ways. … maybe an outside team playing every week in LIV, why not. But again, not too sure how they’re going to come together as one tour, so why not have an agreeable two tours where there’s a bit of rivalry.”

Steve Stricker says some LIV golfers want to come back to PGA Tour; are player transfers an option?

The golf conversation continues to be dominated by the PGA Tour-LIV Golf rift.

TUCSON, Ariz. — While player movement at the top level of men’s professional golf usually involves LIV recruiting yet another PGA Tour player, Steve Stricker said he knows that some LIV golfers want to return to the PGA Tour.

“I know that for a fact,” he said Thursday after his pro-am round ahead of the 2024 Cologuard Classic at La Paloma Country Club. “And so it’s kind of a wait and see game.”

With much of the golf conversation dominated by the rift, there doesn’t see to be much oxygen left to talk about the other tours but players on the PGA Tour Champions are paying attention to the goings-on in the world of professional golf.

“Of course I’m very interested in what happens,” said Stewart Cink, who turned 50 last year but still plays on both PGA Tour circuits. “I hope that we can get back together as like one sport in golf, but it’s a complex situation.”

With the PGA Tour holding a big-money signature event at the Arnold Palmer Invitational and LIV Golf playing for a fourth time in 2024 in Hong Kong, the Champions circuit is about to stage the first of three straight West Coast events.

“Ultimately, I hope someday we all can play nice together again and have the best players in the world playing and competing against one another,” said Stricker. “I think that day will come and I think there will be some circumstances, you know, where those guys that left are going to have to do something, I don’t know, a penalty of some sort, I don’t know what that means. I hope some day it all comes back together and the guys are playing all together again.”

Whether the rival tours coexist, merge or simply allow some crossover, many feel that there should be no easy path back to the PGA Tour for those who left.

“I wouldn’t let the LIV guys come right back, I don’t think. I think there needs to be some way of, you know, just another way to say thanks for the guys that didn’t leave and just kind of abandon our standards and rules,” Cink said. “I think there needs to be some form of like delayed, I don’t know if it’s delaying some of their performance bonuses or if it’s some kind of a suspension that maintains itself, I don’t know exactly, but something.”

Big names on the PGA Tour leaving for LIV Golf is having a ripple effect on the Champions tour.

“It’s unfortunate, because when [Phil] Mickelson came out, it was a jolt for our tour and it was great,” David Toms, the defending champion of the Cologuard Classic, said during a media day Monday at Mission Hills Country Club in Rancho Mirage, California, for the upcoming Galleri Classic.

Mickelson won his first two – and four of his first six – starts on the PGA Tour Champions in 2021 but seven months after rolling in a birdie putt on the 18th hole at Phoenix Country Club to end that season, he was off to London for the first-ever LIV Golf event.

“And so then all of the sudden he’s not a part of us anymore. So that’s unfortunate,” Toms said.

The drain of veteran golfers with name recognition means the Champions circuit also lost out on Lee Westwood, who turned 50 in April of 2023 and it won’t be able to welcome Ian Poulter, who turned 48 in January 2024, nor Henrik Stenson, who turns 48 this April, in the coming years. The PGA Tour losing a bit of name recognition eventually means a weakened Champions tour.

As long as the PGA Tour and LIV exist, perhaps there’s some middle ground that can be found.

“I’m not against, you know, some sort of a transfer back and forth. I played (Mexico Open) there on the PGA Tour a couple weeks ago, and I’m sure they would have loved to have Abraham Ancer play. So I’m not against having a small amount of invites, and that cuts both ways,” said Padraig Harrington, who compared the situation to the rivalry the PGA Tour used to have with the European Tour. “When the European Tour is in Spain this year, we would love to have Jon Rahm play the Spanish Open. I’m not against a small amount of transfer of players playing events and maybe a couple of invites going each direction. Maybe an outside team playing every week in LIV, why not.

“But again, not too sure how they’re going to come together as one tour, so why not have an agreeable two tours where there’s a bit of rivalry.”

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Padraig Harrington insists his instructional videos can get ‘every golfer in the whole wide world to a single figure handicap’

“It’s hard to be a scratch golfer, but to get to 9, it’s not that hard.”

TUCSON, Ariz. — For golf nerds, Padraig Harrington is a must follow on social media.

If you watch his instructional videos enough, you might even get really good at the game.

“I should be able to get every golfer in the whole wide world to a single figure handicap. I think that’s a very reasonable goal,” Harrington said after his pro-am round at La Paloma Country Club, host venue for this week’s Cologuard Classic on the PGA Tour Champions.

“I’ve always liked coaching,” he said, his words coming from a place of truly trying to help the “weekend warriors” get better as this difficult game. Harrington started making videos during the COVID shutdown. He was actually kept from traveling home to Ireland for several months during 2020, so he just kept playing golf but he also started pointing the cellphone camera towards himself to create content that just might help someone out there learn the game.

Cologuard: Steve Stricker says ‘it’s fun thinking about’ pairing up with Tiger Woods for team event in New Orleans

“I tried to post a video every day, then obviously we expanded to now doing it on YouTube on Paddy’s Golf Tips. It’s enjoyable. It’s a great way to get access to the public directly.”

Chris DiMarco, a five-year veteran of the Champions circuit, says it’s “fun watching them and it’s not just something he’s doing to be funny.”

But is it realistic to turn Joe Sixpack, who goes through two sleeves of balls each round, into a single-digit handicapper?

“I think that’s a very reasonable goal,” he insists. “It’s hard to be a scratch golfer, but to get to 9, it’s not that hard.

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“When I say it’s not that hard, there’s some simple things you can do to get there and that’s what my videos are mainly focused on. I’m really just trying to help the weekend warrior get to a level where if you’re a single figure golfer, you can walk into any clubhouse with your chest expanded. It’s a level of achievement.”

Shedding bad habits is one thing. So is ignoring the so-called tips that everyone has heard.

“When it comes to golf, people who come to golf, especially athletes who come to golf, they seem to have some crazy ideas about keeping your head still or keeping your head down or swinging slowly. God, they’re like 100 percent, I think, it won’t be 100 percent, but 99 percent of golfers would be better off doing the exact opposite of what they think would be better. Just swing away, that’s probably the best advice you could give. You’ll just get used to it and time it after that rather than to try and get good too quick, too early.

“We could talk about this all day,” he said.

His playing competitors sometimes notice, too. Harrington says he was stopped by a Champions tour colleague Thursday morning about a recent video.

“I was literally walking out the door, the pro said it was really helping him,” he said before continuing his thoughts in instructor mode. “I just did a recent one with stepping in your swing, try and get the proper sequence in at the movements. Remember, I said movements. You don’t stay still when you’re swinging a golf club, you’ve got to move.

“I’m not trying to make these lessons for my fellow pros,” he added. “I’m trying to make them, as I said, for beginners and people who are kind of stuck in the game, who aren’t improving and trying to get them across that threshold of, you know, being able to break 80, be a single-figure golfer.”