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Padraig Harrington has been lapping lately, but that lap was almost derailed by a trip to the bathroom on Saturday.
Harrington won four times in his first full PGA Tour Champions season in 2022 and impressed last week by slashing at the PGA Championship and shooting a 69 in the Final Round. That momentum carried over into this week’s Senior PGA Championship at New Fields Farm East at PGA Frisco, where he takes a one-stroke lead through 54 holes.
Looking at his scorecards this week, it’s not hard to see why he’s so dominant. Harrington has been nearly flawless this week and has yet to make a bogey.
But we said almost.
Harrington’s only blemish so far this week came on the 16th hole on Saturday when he committed a double bogey that could have dropped him to a share of the 54-hole lead. With a sand wedge in his hands, he threw his approach to danger and took two attempts to get out.
Fortunately for the 51-year-old, he holed the 18th hole to keep the wire-to-wire single lead intact with an 18th to play.
However, after the round, in textbook case for TMI, Harrington, undirected, gave “the silliest excuse ever” for why he lost focus on his par-4 457 yards.
“16 came out of nowhere,” he said after the tour. So I basically went to the toilet. The door was locked. It took me a minute to realize there wasn’t someone there, another few, another time to open the door. I had, like we were on the Champions Tour, the longest pee ever. Then I rushed downstairs. fairway and hit my shot.
“The second shot was kind of harmless because the pin was so tight, I was playing 15 feet off the left, and to be honest, yeah, I wasn’t – I do that sometimes, I wasn’t focused, I wasn’t interested in it and I got a bad shot into danger.” .
“Disappointed I overdid it—you know, I was trying to make this up, so I’m disappointed my first lie went under. My second was a bad lie so I’m killing it.”
“But, yeah, when you get to over 50, sometimes it takes a long time to pee,” he continued. “And that was, yeah, that’s my excuse. That must be original, I suppose.”
The original is probably an understatement. We’ll let you imagine how it all happened on your own, but the 54-hole birdie Harrington has regained his lead by one over Steve Striker as he hunts for his first major after last summer’s US Open. Stuart Sink is the only other player with under-par double figures. He is three behind Harrington at 13 under.
“Golf is a crazy game,” Harrington said. “Some days you get to, you know, hit a bad putt and you get a break and you make birdies. Other days, you play nice, solid, and steady and then you step in. Yes, I would be happy if you came tomorrow and played like I did today.”