Senior PGA Championship

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Congressional Country Club

Bethesda, Maryland, USA

Saturday, May 24, 2025

Padraig Harrington


PADRAIG HARRINGTON: Obviously it's tough enough conditions. I'm happy to be two shots back. I felt it could be worse. I made a few nice birdies at times out there. Wasn't great off the tee, wasn't great with my putting. It kind of left me on edge most of the day.

Yeah, a little bit disappointed to not birdie 16, double 17. I certainly could have finished a little stronger. But being only two shots back, there's a lot of people in play, but at least I'm within two of the lead.

Q. How good did you feel -- some of your drivers were a little bit off, but you had some great saves, especially on 18 and on 1. How good did you feel about getting out of trouble?

PADRAIG HARRINGTON: Yeah, you know, on 1 I made a great save, no doubt about it, for bogey. I didn't have a lot of chips outside of that. I'm trying to think where the two bogeys I had -- 8 and 10 were three-putts. Missed a short one -- I got in trouble on 14.

I hit 5-wood, tried to get it down there, tried to draw it on the wind, got lucky to find the ball, hacked it out, had about a six-footer for par, which would have been a huge par.

Nice to birdie 15. Hit it stone dead. As I said, 16 and 17 -- 17, I got a little bit too aggressive from the lie. Yeah, disappointing. The other day I would have got the first one up-and-down, let alone take 6 from there. So that was a bit disappointing.

Nice to birdie the last, as I said. Don't want to tempt fate, but there's not much down the left-hand side of 18. You can hit it down there, and you would feel -- the difference being to the front left pin it's easy to be there, to the back left pin it would have been terrible. Well, not terrible, you still would have got it on the green.

Yeah, I wasn't really out of position there too much. I'm just -- I haven't really thought too much about my round, to be honest. Just tried to play -- with the wind sometimes it's good that you just play each hole as it comes. Certainly there were some difficult shots out there. I seemed to hit some really nice -- some of the tougher holes, I seemed to hit some really nice iron shots on.

Hopefully tomorrow I drive it like I drove it the first day, which was great, and hole a few putts.

Q. Will your approach be one of seeing how the round turns out early on with the other guys, or will you aggressively go after it?

PADRAIG HARRINGTON: It really depends on the wind. I don't know what the forecast -- if it's as windy as this, it would be hard for anybody to go away. If it's not windy, there's so many people up there, somebody is going to shoot 66, 65.

Yeah, you've got to expect if it's a nice day tomorrow, 9-under par. Somebody is going to shoot a good score. There's so many people up there.

If it's a bad day, yeah, who knows. It could be -- you kind of knuckle down and -- I don't necessarily see anywhere out there -- like I wouldn't change my strategy on any hole. The four par-5s play downwind, so maybe 6 -- I'd still go for it no matter what if I hit the fairway.

No, I don't see anything changing based on -- there's nowhere out there where -- maybe 5 and -- let me see if I get this right. 5 and 8 can be drivable if it dries up and they go downwind. But outside of that, there's no strategy changes at all. The course plays the same way.

There's nothing to take on that you wouldn't take on anyway because if you're going over trouble you're going to do it anyway. I think what you're thinking, the likes of 6 is a big risk-reward hole, but I'd probably play it the same way. It's so early in the round, you're going to play it the same way as if -- if you hit that fairway down there, you're going to go for it. If you don't, you lay it up.

FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports
156225-1-1041 2025-05-24 21:50:00 GMT

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