Padraig Harrington is determined to beat Father Time and win the Charles Schwab Cup for the first time after he held off the chasing pack to win the inaugural Simmons Bank Championship in Arkansas on Sunday night.
While he’s still one of the biggest hitters on the over-50s circuit, the Dubliner eased off on the power coming down the stretch before going for a big drive on the par-five 18th to break the back of the hole and set up a simple two-putt birdie to win by two shots.
He needed to win in Little Rock to give himself a mathematical chance of overhauling points leader and fellow Hall of Famer Ernie Els at the season-ending Charles Schwab Cup Championship in Arizona.
But at 53, he also knows he’s not getting any younger and will have fewer chances to take the season-long title.
“Yeah, I’m getting a bit older, so I am aware that it’s not going to get easier to win the Schwab Cup,” Harrington said at Pleasant Valley on Sunday night where his massive tee shots at the par-five last left him a “three-quarter” five-iron from 213 yards, setting up a five-under 67 that gave him his third win of the 2024 season and the ninth of his senior career by two strokes from YE Yang on 17-under-par.
“There’s more players coming on, new players. If I have a chance, I’ll certainly be anxious to take my chance.”
After leaping from 11th to fourth in the standings, Harrington knows a win in the final event at Phoenix Country Club in Arizona will give him the season-long race.
It’s a 72-hole event rather than the usual 54 holes, and while he has the length to beat the younger players arriving on the PGA Tour Champions each year, Harrington also knows when to use that power.
“Look, I’ve tried to keep my speed up to compete with the young guys, so it’s an advantage when I come out here, for sure,” he said.
“I can get a fair clip – this is actually one of the first times I actually slowed myself down on that back nine because I got out of sorts.
“So it was unusual for me, but I was trying to swing easy at the end, just keeping it tidy. But that’s because when you’re in contention, you’ve got a little bit more adrenaline.
“It’s nice to have that advantage and know I can get at a few more pins than other guys, but you’ve still got to hole the putts and hit the shots.”
His decision to take the driver at the 18th proved to be the ideal percentage play, as he explained afterwards.
“Yeah, myself and my caddie (Ronan Flood) looked at it, we knew there was one player who could make an eagle to catch me if I made par,” he said.
“It would have been conservative to play it for a par, but I just knew if I hit a good drive, that’s the end of the hole.
“One shot, if I hit a good drive down the fairway, it’s an easy enough hole. I think if I laid up off the tee, I was kind of in no-man’s land, and I still would have had to make a good two-putt even if I played it well from there.
“Look, sometimes you’ve just got to take your chance when you get it. Could have worked out the other way, but I was more focused on… look, if I hit the shots, it takes everybody else out of play.”
The Dubliner won $365,000 to take his season’s earnings on the PGA Tour Champions in the 2024 season to $1.63m.
But he came within two inches of pocketing some extra cash after almost holing in one at the 162-yard second.
“Out here on the Tour, we have a pool for hole-in-ones, everybody puts a hundred dollars in, everybody wants to put a hundred dollars in,” Harrington said of his nine-iron that spun back to within two inches of the lip.
“If you hole out, you get to collect. Most weeks, you’re paying out, but the day I hole out will be very sweet.
“As I said, we have a pool on the Tour for hole-in-ones, so at that moment, I was nearly more excited about the pool than I was about my tournament.
“It was an important birdie, for sure, when it came to the last couple holes. It was nice to have that one in the bank.”
Sunday’s win was the 41st of Harrington’s professional career and he was as thrilled as ever.
“My intention when I was a young guy was to play amateur golf,” he said. “I only turned pro because I was beating the guys who were turning pro.
“But I’ve never looked back. I’ve run with that ball and golf has been very good for me.
“It doesn’t get old though winning, I’ve got to say.”
He added: “Hitting those shots wasn’t just about winning this tournament, it was about kind of reliving the past glories.
“I’m not saying validating past glories, but certainly reliving it. Hey, I did this once and I was pretty good at it and I’m not too bad at it now.”