Padraig Harrington is 18 holes away from his second senior major golf championship. He’s doing his best to not let a prolonged pit stop knock him off track.
A member of the over-50 circuit since last year, Harrington leads the 2023 KitchenAid Senior PGA Championship in Frisco, Texas, 16 under by a shot over Steve Stricker. Rounds of 64-68-68 at the brand new East Course has Harrington in a solid position and he’s happy with how his week is going so far.
“First day I shot 64 easy. Second day I got everything out of it to shoot 68. Today I left a lot out on the golf course and shoot 68,” he said Saturday after his third round. “Golf’s a crazy game.”
Golf can be crazy indeed.
Turns out during the third round Mother Nature came calling for Harrington and let’s just say he’s wasn’t shy about discussing a very personal incident.
“Probably have had the silliest, maybe the most silliest. … I come up with the silliest excuse ever for making. … I’m glad I broke my par streak. It’s not good not to have made a bogey. That’s not a good thing. I know that sounds strange, so that’s the first thing I’ll say,” Harrington began to explain, slowly working his way up to the, uh, well, the interesting part of the story.
“Sixteen came out of nowhere, which is, I have a. … so, essentially, I went in the toilet. The door was locked. Took me a minute to realize there wasn’t somebody in there, another few, another while to get the door open.
“As we are on the Champions Tour, I had the longest pee ever.”
You gotta go, the door is locked, you’re not sure someone’s in there, your group is waiting on you. We’ve all been there.
“And then I kind of rushed down the fairway and hit my shot. The second shot was kind of innocuous because the pin was so tight I was just playing 15 feet left of it and to be honest, yeah, I just, I wasn’t. … I do that sometimes, I just wasn’t focused, I wasn’t into it and I hit a bad shot in the hazard.”
Harrington ended up with a double bogey on the par-4 16th hole. He carded five birdies on the day before that, and then closed with a birdie on the par-5 18th, keeping his lead intact after 54 holes.
“But, yeah, so when you get over 50 it sometimes takes a long time to have a pee. And that was, yeah, that’s my excuse. That’s got to be original, I would assume.”
