TOUR CHAMPIONSHIP:IN THE space of a couple of months, Padraig Harrington has morphed from a player who couldn't make a cut into one who can't stay out of contention. And, after a run of five top-10 finishes in his last five appearances on the US Tour, the 38-year-old Dubliner yesterday continued his hot late-season form with an opening round of three under par 67 in the Tour Championship at East Lake Country Club in Atlanta.
Sean O’Hair grabbed the clubhouse lead with a four-under-par 66, which gave him a one-shot lead over Harrington and Stewart Cink while FedEx Cup leader Tiger Woods was also three-under on his round through 16 holes.
The Tour Championship, the fourth and final leg of the FedEx Cup, with €6.8 million ($10million) to the winner of the play-offs series, has a limited-field of 30 players. There is no cut and Harrington, sixth in the standings, produced an opening round that put him into the thick of contention.
Ominously, however, Woods, after a poor front nine, regenerated his own ambitions with a move on the back nine that also moved him very much into the frame. The world’s number one, seeking his seventh win of the season, turned in level par but grabbed birdies at the 12th, 13th and 15th to reinvigorate his challenge.
Harrington was in total control of his game on the front nine, which he covered in just 31 strokes. Most importantly, his putter was hot. He rolled in a 16-footer for birdie on the first and followed with three more on that outward journey, holing from six-feet on the third and, then, becoming only the second player in the round to birdie the 520 yards par four fifth where he hit a 243 yards approach to 12 feet.
He couldn’t put a foot wrong on the front nine. The Irishman’s fourth birdie of a bogey-free front nine came on the seventh, where he hit a wedge approach from 141 yards to 25 feet.
However, once he failed to convert a nine-foot birdie chance on the ninth, Harrington’s putter got colder and a number of birdie chances were abegging on the 11th, 12th and 13th (where he left an 18-footer tottering on the lip) before he suffered the first – and only – bogey of his round on the par five 15th when his second shot found a poor lie in a greenside bunker and he left his first escape effort in the trap.
On the 235 yards par three 18th, Harrington’s rescue club tee-shot came up 20 yards short of the green but his sharp short game came to his rescue as he pitched to four feet and sank the par putt for a 67.
Cink, the British Open champion, described some of the pin placements on the firm greens as borderline – they do have some pins on downslopes – but praised the general conditioning of the putting surfaces. After his opening 67 to get into the thick of things, he remarked: “I want to win here, and I want to play the golf course the best I can this week and see what happens. I’m not concerned at 26th if I’m going to win the FedExCup. I just want to have a great finish right here.”
The Atlanta area suffered heavy rainfall – some 20 inches in a 72 hours period in the run-up to the championship – and although the remodeled greens played firm, the course played long. Phil Mickelson’s woes, though, had little to do with the conditions.
Renowned for his short game, Mickelson ran up a quadruple bogey eight on the 14th which included no fewer than three shots from the same greenside bunker. He finished with a round of three over par 73.
Mickelson wasn’t the only one to suffer, as Scott Verplank, who had covered the front nine in 31, went into reverse on the run home with four bogeys on the back nine to shoot a level par 70 that simply confirmed the difficulties that the East Lake course will present to players over the next three days.
Former US Open champion Geoff Ogilvy struggled to an opening 75 that left him holding up the 30-man field.
East Lake First Round Scores
Par 70 (US unless stated)
66 Sean O’Hair
67 Stewart Cink, Padraig Harrington (Ire), Tiger Woods.
68 Lucas Glover.
69 Steve Marino, Refief Goosen (SA), Dustin Johnson.
70 John Senden (Aus), Luke Donald (Eng), Marc Leishman, Nick Watney, Scott Verplank, Zach Johnson, Steve Stricker.
71 Jerry Kelly, Hunter Mahan, Yang E Yang (S Korea), E Els (SA), Jason Dufner.
72 Mike Weir (Can), Angel Cabrera (Arg), Brian Gay, Kenny Perry, Jim Furyk.
73 Kevin Na, Phil Mickelson, Heath Slocum.
74 David Toms.
75 Geoff Ogilvy (Aus).
