By Art Spander
Special to NewsdayCHASKA, Minn. -- The luck of the Irish? Not for Padraig Harrington. Not in the cruel game of golf which for a second consecutive Sunday sent him careening, this time at the major in which he was defending champion.
Last weekend, feeling rushed after being put on the clock for slow play at the Bridgestone Invitational, Paddy the Dubliner plopped a shot into the water, took a triple bogey and blew the tournament to Tiger Woods.
Virtually the same thing happened to him this weekend, only this time it was in the PGA Championship and this time it was worse. This time it was a quintuple bogey.
At the eighth hole and a shot behind the leader Woods -- who later would incur his own agony, squandering a third-round lead in a major for the first time -- Harrington hit his tee shot into the pond on the 176-yard, par-3 hole.
"I hit a little knock-down 6-iron,'' Harrington explained, "and as I was about to hit it, the wind died, and I hit it a little too easy and it just didn't carry.''
After taking a penalty drop, he nearly skulled playing partner Henrik Stenson with his third shot. His fourth sailed back over the green again and into the same pond. Dropping another ball, and now lying five, Harrington couldn't advance out of the rough. Finally onto the green in seven, he made a 5-foot putt for an 8. From a cumulative 6 under par, he had fallen to 1 under.
After starting the day tied for second, Harrington shot a 6-over 78 and finished tied for 10th with an even-par 288.
"It was a difficult tee shot,'' Harrington said of his travail, "and it was obviously a difficult second shot after you hit it in the water and pulled it left. I had been changing my chipping action a little, and I probably was more into what I was doing rather than trying to get the ball up and down, and you know, I hit a bad shot. So these things happen.''
But two weeks in a row? A triple-bogey 8 on the 16th hole at Firestone CC and now a 5-over 8 on the eighth hole at Hazeltine National?
"It wasn't anybody else,'' said Harrington. "It's all me. But I still hit all my shots out there. I got out of position only on that one hole. Obviously, it was disappointing, but I had my chances all the way through the back nine and could have got it back to 6 under.
"In fairness, I didn't feel like I could afford to make bogey by hitting left like most people. I decided I had to hit the shot, and it didn't come off . . . such is life. Some days they don't come off, and some days they do.''
- - - - - -
http://www.newsday.com/sports/golf/harrington-blows-up-with-quintuple-bogey-1.1373427Copyright © 2009 Newsday. All rights reserved.