British Open Champ Wraps Up Rare Double in Majors

Golf Championship Trophy

Trophy News From Michigan

Padraig Harrington’s Irish eyes don’t smile. At least not until he’s holding some hulking trophy in celebration of another major championship.

In the heat of a major Sunday, those eyes sear. They could burn holes in kevlar. We know that they can melt his opponents at just the right time.

They are the eyes that show no fear, only a fierce determination to do what so many others find impossible: produce the shots and the putts when you absolutely have to.

Harrington already had shown he could do so in capturing back-to-back British Open trophies. He’s never done it better, however, than he did yesterday when the 90th PGA Championship trophy was in doubt, and he responded with one of the finest closing efforts a major has seen.

The 36-year-old from Dublin made a 20-foot putt to save par at 16, made a spectacular 10-foot birdie at the brutally difficult par-3 17th, and saved an all-world par from the sand and rough with a 15-foot putt at 18 to win a major golf trophy for the second time in a 21-day span.

Already lauded as Ireland’s greatest golfer, Harrington ended a 78-year PGA drought for the Europeans, who hadn’t won since Tommy Armour beat Gene Sarazen in match play in 1930.

“I knew the situation. I knew what I had to do,” Harrington was saying last night, the enormous Wanamaker Trophy sitting at his side. “I’m a great believer in making your own responsibility, whether you win or you don’t win. You get chances on the back nine in a major tournament, and you’ve got to take them.”

Harrington wanted it badly, and few beyond the absent Tiger Woods seize it the way he does.

“I kind of felt like I won the PGA at that stage, thinking this is it,” Harrington said. “I had the opportunity to get the putt in first, which was important.”

He was dead on. Harrington made his effort, Sergio Garcia missed – as he had done on the 72nd hole at Carnoustie last year – and Harrington had the one-shot cushion.

There was still the hardest hole on the course to conquer, and Harrington made it interesting. He drove under the lip of the right bunker and blasted out into the rough, but then launched an excellent 7-iron to 15 feet.

Harrington stroked it true, and got to celebrate a major trophy win like never before, pumping his fists in celebration.

Originally Written by Tod Leonard of the San Diego Union-Tribune