Steve Stricker gained the Senior PGA Championship on Sunday, beating Padraig Harrington in a playoff and sweeping the primary two senior majors of the season. Harrington compelled the playoff with a brief birdie putt at the par-5 18th, however put his pressure in the replay of the opening in deep grass at the proper facet of the golf green. After a failed try to hack the ball out, the 51-year-old Irishman dropped 285 yards away and put a fairway picket inside 15 ft. Stricker neglected a 2nd consecutive putt to win on 18, however Harrington could not make the par putt to increase the playoff. Stricker and Harrington, completed 18 beneath. Stricker shot 3-under 69 and Harrington 70. This was once Stricker’s 6th senior main identify and 2nd consecutive win in two weeks after he gained the Regions Tradition.
Harrington’s first PGA Tour Champions identify was once the U.S. Senior Open ultimate 12 months, when he held off Stricker by way of a stroke in a duel of the opposing Ryder Cup captains from 2021. They performed on the Fields Ranch East path in Frisco, Texas, about 35 miles north of Dallas, which is about to host the PGA Championship in 2027 and 2034 and doubtlessly the Ryder Cup in the past due 2030s. Stewart Cink completed two pictures again and on my own in 3rd enjoying with Stricker and Harrington.
All 5 of Stricker’s earlier senior main wins have been by way of six pictures, however this time he got here from in the back of, erasing a five-shot deficit in the overall 9 holes of the 3rd spherical to arrange any other two-player fit. He took a two-shot lead with a chip-in for birdie on the 220-yard, par-3 thirteenth to respond to a bogey at 12. Harrington narrowed the deficit to 1 with a birdie on the quick par-4 fifteenth. After each made bogey at 17, Harrington neglected an eagle strive at 18 to offer Stricker a putt for the win. Stricker neglected from about 18 ft, and Harrington made a brief putt to pressure the playoff.
The lead started slipping clear of Harrington on Saturday when a rest room ruin began a series that resulted in a double-bogey, his first over-par hollow of the match, on the par-4 sixteenth. Harrington had any other journey at the identical hollow in the overall spherical when a wayward tee shot hit a fan in the pinnacle down the left facet, caroming virtually all of the as far back as the golf green. After hanging his 2nd shot at the inexperienced, Harrington greeted the fan sitting in a cart and retaining what gave the impression be a serviette on his head wound. After giving him a signed glove, Harrington took out his pockets and gave the fan money.
South Korean and Dallas resident Y.E. Yang, the 2009 PGA champion, was once on my own in fourth at 11 beneath after a 70. Defending champion Steven Alker shot 71 to complete 9 beneath in conjunction with Miguel Angel Jimenez and Darren Clarke.
