FRISCO, Texas – Padraig Harrington was on cruise control through 45 holes of the 83rd KitchenAid Senior PGA Championship. Until suddenly, he wasn’t.
Bogey-free through 51 holes, the golf gods finally got a hold of the Irishman’s game on the par-4 16th.
“The second shot was kind of innocuous because the pin was so tight,” Harrington told reporters following his third-round 68. “I was just playing 15 feet left of it and to be honest, yeah, I just, I wasn’t — I do that sometimes, I just wasn’t focused, I wasn’t into it and I hit a bad shot in the hazard.”
The double bogey, while untimely, was somewhat of a sigh of relief for Harrington.
“I’m glad I broke my par streak,” he said. “It’s not good not to have made a bogey. That’s not a good thing. I know that sounds strange.”
Standing over his tee shot on the par-3 17th, Harrington held the same club that caused his trouble on 16. Opting to be aggressive, Harrington nipped the flag stick resulting in an easy par.
On 18, the three-time major winner leaked his tee shot off to the right, playing it off the lateral hazard line. Needing a par to remain tied with a surging Steve Stricker, Harrington got up and down out of a greenside bunker to birdie the par-5 last and takes a one-stroke lead into Sunday’s final round. The birdie not only gives him the overnight lead, but gives Harrington a boost of confidence despite slipping down the stretch.
“It’s always nice to hole a putt on the last,” he said Golfweek. “Yeah. So you’re dead right, it creates a bit of momentum, for sure.”
Heading into Saturday’s third round, it seemed like it was Harrington’s tournament to lose. But former Ryder Cup captain and 2023 co-captain, Steve Stricker, took it upon himself to close the gap and apply pressure.
Five shots back to start the day and six back at one point during Saturday’s round, Stricker stormed out of the gates with a 4-under 32 on the front nine.
“I mean, all you can do is continue to keep trying to make birdies,” he told reporters. “I was in a position to try to be aggressive and try to hit good shots, make putts, try to make birdies. That was the mindset. Also not trying to make a bogey. I figured if I could go bogey-free today I needed a good round to get right back in there. We got one more round and a lot of golf left.”
Doubling down on a solid front nine, Stricker followed his gameplan to a tee, posting a bogey-free 64, tying the course record set by Harrington on Thursday and matching the best third-round score in Senior PGA Championship history.
Joining the pair in Sunday’s final-round pairing is PGA Tour Champions rookie Stewart Cink.
Well off the lead and stalling a bit on the front nine, Cink credits his wife, Lisa, with getting him into the mix.
“She (Lisa) told me at the turn, I kind of had a dry spell there where I bogeyed 8, bad decision on 8, made a bogey there,” Cink told reporters.
“I kind of went one direction and Padraig went the other way. And all of a sudden I was like seven back… So Lisa said, ‘You know, you’re playing fine, but the big thing is that you [are] just seven back of Harrington now. He’s kind of like separated himself.’ She said, ‘Let’s just try to like kind of pick our way back into sort of like shouting distance here’… I wouldn’t really say it actually changed my attitude, but it kind of gave me confidence to just instead of getting it all back at once I could just kind of pick away at it. … So I got to give my illustrious caddy some credit for that one.”
The 2009 Open champion was rewarded for sticking to his revised gameplan with an ace on the par-3 13th, the third ace of the week at Fields Ranch.
Quickly cutting into Harrington’s lead, Cink closed out his third round with a 5-under 67, three back of the lead.
When it comes to chasing down his first PGA Tour Champions win, Cink is ready to put up a good fight.
“I’m three back, but it’s probably the two players (Sticker and Harrington) you don’t want to be behind in this tournament, to be honest,” Cink said post round. “The two guys who are going to probably — that fit this course the best and have the best experience and confidence over their last handful of seasons out here. I’m the new guy, so I’m, I’ve got the firepower to play with those guys or take over this thing, but it’s going to be a dog fight tomorrow. … So I look forward to it tomorrow. It will feel like a big tournament for sure tomorrow and it’s not every day you get to do that.”
With low scores certainly doable, the new home of the PGA of America should offer a dramatic finish as star power takes center stage Sunday.
Robert Karlsson, Darren Clarke and YE Yang look to make a push tied at 9 under. Defending Senior PGA champion, Steven Alker, sits in solo seventh (8 under) with Katsumasa Miyamoto, Miguel Angel Jimenez and Asilson da Silva rounding out the top 10 at 7 under.
Story originally appeared on GolfWeek