No ground lost, but none gained either. In the race to top the European Tour's Order of Merit, that was the position Padraig Harrington found himself in yesterday after an indifferent final round in the Madrid Open at Club de Campo saw him relinquish the tournament lead, and drop down to tied-seventh position, the same mark as his rival for the moneylist, South African Retief Goosen. Philip Reid reports
Harrington did, however, move ahead of Ernie Els in the Order of Merit. The Dubliner is now in second place - still €54,029 behind Goosen - with just two tournaments left, this week's Italian Open in Rome and next week's season-ending Volvo Masters in Valderrama. Harrington, seeking to become the first Irish player since Ronan Rafferty in 1989 to win the money list, is playing in both events; Goosen, though, is only playing in Valderrama.
Although he carried a one-shot lead in to yesterday's final round, and got off to a flying start with two birdies in the first two holes, Harrington's form deserted him and he finished with a closing round 72, one of just 13 players of the 78 who made the cut to shoot over-par in the final round. Indeed, an indication of the benign conditions was that 51 of them shot sub-par rounds in a tournament won by Steen Tinning, the fourth Dane to win on the European Tour this season.
After his fast start, Harrington was to garner just one more birdie in the remainder of his round while also accumulating four bogeys, as many as he had incurred in total in his first three rounds.
"I had a bad day on the greens," said a bitterly disappointed Harrington. "This was a great chance, it really was. It was there for me to do and for some reason the putts were just not dropping."
Elsewhere, however, there was good news for 28-year-old Dubliner Peter Lawrie who clinched his full tour card for next season in style by winning the Challenge Tour Grand Final in Bordeaux. It was Lawrie's first win on the secondary tour but success elevated him from eighth in the Challenge Tour Order of Merit up to fourth, guaranteeing him a good card for next season's regular tour which actually gets under way with the Asian Open in Taiwan in three weeks time.
"I'm delighted with this, I've worked long and hard for my full card. Consistency was the key, I never felt under pressure and that round has been threatening for a long time. Hopefully this is a sign of things to come," said Lawrie, who completed his tour de force with a final round 65 for 12-under-par 272, which left him four shots clear of Frenchman Julien va Hauwe in Bordeaux. It was Lawrie's eighth top-10 finish of the season and his seventh in the last nine tournaments.
The top 15 players on the Challenge Tour Order of Merit won their full tour cards for next season, but Gary Murphy's quest ended in failure. Although he finished tied-eighth in Bordeaux, it left him in 28th place on the money list and means a return to tour school next month.
England's Denis Durnian won the Estoril Seniors Tour Championship in strange circumstances after Ireland's Eamonn Darcy conceded after hitting just one shot on the first hole of a sudden-death play-off at Quinta da Marinha.
Darcy drove into the trees down the right hand side of the first play-off hole and then conceded to his rival after breaking a branch with his practice swing, which contravened Rule 13-2 and meant a two-shot penalty.
