Pádraig Harrington acted out the role of dominant front-runner in claiming the ISPS Handa Senior Open – to add to his US Senior Open success of last month – with an impressive closing round 67 for a total of 16-under-par 264 for a three-stokes winning margin over runners-up Justin Leonard and Thomas Bjorn at Sunningdale.
An eagle at the first hole, where he hit his approach to 10 feet, saw the 53-year-old Dubliner – who carried a two-shots lead into the final round – strengthen his position and, in becoming just the fifth player to win both The Open and the Senior Open, Harrington sealed the deal in emphatic fashion to add to his brilliant career CV that has seen him win three Majors and, now, three senior Majors.
Masters champion Rory McIlroy was among those who turned up at the classic heathland course in Berkshire to watch Harrington’s masterclass.
Of adding another championship to his roll-of-honour, Harrington remarked: “As you get older, you realise a lot of things is legacy and what you’ve done. You want to do things that stand out, and having won a real Open, coming out, winning the Senior Open, it adds a validation. It’s certainly satisfying to do it, to extend your career that way.
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“There are some great names on the trophy. I was looking up inside at the board that has all the winners. It’s a deep sense of satisfaction. I’m kind of on a high of winning, but then there will be that deep sense of satisfaction knowing that you’ve done both.
“And especially you come to this stage [of my career], there’s only a certain window. You know, you can win later on as a senior but the window, they say, sort of up to about 55, 56, so you want to get it done. And having had a couple of second places, I didn’t want to leave it too long,” said Harrington, who won €380,000 for this victory and moved to second on the PGA Champions Tour order of merit after his second senior Major of the season.
Darren Clarke shot a final round 72 for 282 to finish in tied-51st.
Meanwhile, Lottie Woad – who won the KPMG Irish Women’s Open as an amateur earlier this month – marked her professional debut with a brilliant win in the ISPS Handa Scottish Women’s Open, a co-sanctioned tournament on the LPGA Tour and the LET.
The 21-year-old Englishwoman – with veteran Irish caddie Dermot Byrne on the bag – shot a closing round 68 for a total of 21-under-par 267, which gave her a three-strokes winning margin over South Korea’s Hyo Joo Kim, with Ireland’s Leona Maguire finishing in tied-16th. Woad’s first pay-day as a professional brought her a winner’s cheque for €255,554.
