Padraig Harrington.....2015 Honda Classic Champion

abff

shaneon77 wrote: »

Frustrating viewing tonight.

I was just about to say the same thing. He must have hit at least 4 or 5 putts that looked like they would drop and just missed by a fraction.

kmart6

Harrington kicking American footballs into the crowd is so un-golf like...have to love the Phoenix Open!

bigtimecharlie

abff wrote: »

I was just about to say the same thing. He must have hit at least 4 or 5 putts that looked like they would drop and just missed by a fraction.

Those putts would have dropped yesterday, probably the difference between the 2 rounds.

mafc

Nice birdie -18 now tied for 6th

abff

Another dropped shot on the 18th. Horrible way to finish after hitting a super drive.

bigtimecharlie

Bogey finish, T9.

2 low rounds in the 60's are the positives. Good to see him in the hunt, onwards and upwards.

Speak Now

Top 10 not bad considering he had 2 poor rounds and it was course he wasn't familiar with. Be interesting following him the next 3 weeks.

JohnnyLocke

The guy on here who calculated his world ranking position before the official website. If your around, id appreciate it if you calculated it again tonight! :P Hope hes safely back in top 50 now. The next two events he plays, Pebble and Riviera are his favourite on Tour all year. Safe to say hes my betting tip for those two weeks!!!!

mag

hes a hard man to have e/w money on...:(

FixdePitchmark

Big step up from Padraig - we all know he should have been top 5 . But it is great to see him playing, where a very low score is back in his game.

His long game is great. Par 3s and mid irons top of the range.

The 3 eagle chances he missed ( i seen) sums up his game - great golf but then not making it. I don't care what the stats say , he should have got 1 of the 3.

Couple of bad shots from less than 100 yards - this is and was his bread and butter. 18 day 3 was awfull.

If he pulls all that together one week - he will win a very big one. But i guess every pro could say that.

But plenty to be positive about.

mag

same as his last round performances in 2012 - too tentative / lack of confidence in his putting

PRAF

Didn't see any of last nights round but it was a shame to see him drop a few places on the final day. Still a top 10 finish is no mean feat for his first time in Phoenix and he moves up to 47th in the world rankings as a result.

I think the last round is probably typical of his 2012 form. Lots of good play but just not enough birdies & dropped putts on the back 9 on Sunday. The rankings system is setup to reward the guys who win or get top 5s and top 3s. Harrington gets 7 points for coming 9th but would've picked up over 20 for coming 3rd.

Traditionally, Harrington doesn't win those really low scoring events. He's much more likely to win with a score of -5 or -10 on a tough track then he is to win with a -28. Lets hope Pebble and Riviera are more suited to him and he gets that early season win!

FixdePitchmark

Watching last now.

Awful finish from Padraig.

One thing about Phil - he looks fitter than normal.

They were saying Butch Harmon had an emergency session with him before The Waste Management - worked, because he was rubbish only the week before.

I might try get a day with Butch.

abff

JohnnyLocke wrote: »

The guy on here who calculated his world ranking position before the official website. If your around, id appreciate it if you calculated it again tonight! :P Hope hes safely back in top 50 now. The next two events he plays, Pebble and Riviera are his favourite on Tour all year. Safe to say hes my betting tip for those two weeks!!!!

#

Sorry, I was too frustrated after watching the 18th and went straight to bed.

As it turns out, a par on the last would still have left him in 47th place. Hopefully, he'll kick on from here and have a few more top 10s and maybe even that elusive W.

JohnnyLocke

Just been looking through the PGA Tour website, they dont seem to be as up to date with their stats as previous years. Even the shot tracker has been a bit ropey so far this year. Im interested to see where Paddy lies in the driving distance category. Did any else see how long he was driving the ball? Crazy long!!!!

blackwaterfish

Imho: it looks like every time in the last while... when he gets himself into a potentially winning position or very high up the board he always brain-farts his way home. his body language, to me, is of a guy who now chokes somewhat when he gets himself positioned well. he just looked down in the dumps from the start last night. harsh probably, but fixable at least.

it makes no sense to me that he putted so well for 3 days and last night was dismal. leaving putts short like he did repeatedly is signs of a mental state thats clearly not calm.

anyway, great to see him in the last group, that's progress... but the long road back to glory continues.

abff

blackwaterfish wrote: »

Imho: it looks like every time in the last while... when he gets himself into a potentially winning position or very high up the board he always brain-farts his way home. his body language, to me, is of a guy who now chokes somewhat when he gets himself positioned well. he just looked down in the dumps from the start last night. harsh probably, but fixable at least.

I thought he played very well for the first 4 holes. He was unlucky not to eagle the 3rd and he hit a great tee shot at the 4th to set up a simple birdie. At that stage, he was playing a lot better than both Mickelson and Snedeker. Then both of them started holing from all over the place and I think some frustration kicked in.

His putting then seemed to become a bit tentative and he lost a bit of confidence as he narrowly missed putt after putt. I know I was practically tearing my hair out by the end of the round, so I can only imagine how he was feeling.

JohnnyLocke

I dont agree with him hitting bad putts yesterday. Towards the very end yes he did hit bad putts and the commentators picked up on it but at the beginning of the round he shaved the hole on nearly every putt of the ones that didnt go in. Last year his putting from inside 5 feet was awful but he seems comfortable again. The bad putts well into the back 9 in my opinion comes down to loss of concentration and maybe your point on mental state applies here however Harrington down the years even in his prime has admitted this is an issue for him. Once he is out of contention to win he loses focus. He has always thrown away world ranking points. When he is in with a shout like saturday, before Mickelson birdied the last FOUR he was holing putts for fun and at that point he was right in the tournament. I dont think the putting is an issue Padraig has always been like this. What concerned me was the 5 pulls off the tee in the final round after striping the ball down the fairway all week!

ssbob

JohnnyLocke wrote: »

What concerned me was the 5 pulls off the tee in the final round after striping the ball down the fairway all week!

To be fair, on the 8th hole when Padraig pitched out from behind the tree, that was only about 2/3 yards left of the fairway, Snedeker hit a much worse shot there. Fair enough he did have some pulled shots but I don't think it is anything to overly worry about, he seems to be able to fix little problems like that very quickly on the range!

Great thing is Paddy really enjoys Pebble Beach, I imagine Phil and he will go head to head again this week.

JohnnyLocke

True. Really looking forward to the next 3 events. Historically Harro has done well at Pebble and at Riviera and then finally we will see him compete in the matchplay again!!!! I love the Accenture Matchplay but its not the same when Harro doesnt qualify!!! :P

JohnnyLocke

Just remembered how awful the coverage of this weeks event is so heads up on that! Its the pro-am with celebrities so i think id rather watch the shot tracker until sunday afternoon! Last year it was painful to watch!!!!!

TRS30

JohnnyLocke wrote: »

Just remembered how awful the coverage of this weeks event is so heads up on that! Its the pro-am with celebrities so i think id rather watch the shot tracker until sunday afternoon! Last year it was painful to watch!!!!!

As much as I like some of Bill Murray's movies; his antics at this event get tiring very quickly.

blackwaterfish

JohnnyLocke wrote: »

What concerned me was the 5 pulls off the tee in the final round after striping the ball down the fairway all week!

precisely! likewise he putted like a demon all week, then on sunday, on what were allegedly easy greens to read, he hit some pretty awful miss-reads and definitely left a few short from the 8th onwards.

he looks like a guy that losses his ability to steel himself against failure when the pressures on. Ergo - fear of failure. Example - leaving putts short.

anyhoops, heres hoping he pops in another top 10 finish this wknd - which i think he will - i expect him to be heading into Augusta on the back of an excellent ( but winless ) start to the season. Repetitive high finishes will hopefully restore his killer instinct... and the crazy eyeballs of course!

PRAF

I wouldn't overly analyse his Sunday performance. There was probably a bit of Sunday night, last group jitters. That's only natural. However, the more he puts himself up there, the more natural it will feel again. Maybe a quick visit to Dr Bob might sort that out!

ssbob

blackwaterfish wrote: »

Repetitive high finishes will hopefully restore his killer instinct... and the crazy eyeballs of course!

This is the most important thing for Paddy, he needs to get is "Stare" on:D

FortuneChip

"Comin' atcha Phil!"
Best moment of the round!

madds

The difference this year is that Cowen is part of his back room team so it will be interesting to what sort of a response we get from PH after Cowen spends a few days with him. Really enjoyed watching him from tee to green this week. Still looks like he is coming up out of the majority of his putts, especially from inside 5 feet.

m r c

Tbh I'm delighted to see his name back up near the top again and I wouldn't be too hung up on errors and the like. He was crushing the ball all weekend, was excellent tee to green. The putts will start to drop when he's giving himself a look at birds on a consistent basis. It should be a great year all going well.

soundsham

Have to say he always gives a good interview
His news conference at AT&T on PGA tour app is worth a view
Sorry cant figure how to link it
Nice start -2

Dr_Colossus

Really interesting talk on the philosophical side of golf and his game here:

Well worth a listen, informative and even comical despite the grating voice that is uniquely Padraig's.