Pádraig Harrington hopes his knack for the big occasion on the Champions Tour pays dividends again as he goes in search of his third successive victory at the Simmons Bank Championship which is the second of three playoff events.
Harrington enters the week at Pleasant Valley in Arkansas ranked 6th in the Schwab Cup standings and knows he most likely needs to notch his third victory of the season in order to catch Miguel Angel Jimenez, the number one ranked player in the 54-man field.
The Dubliner has won the US Senior Open and Senior Open Championship this season so it has been a successful campaign, taking his over 50s major tally to three, but he feels his lack of consistency in the regular senior events as he juggled playing on three tours has left him with ground to make up in his quest for a first season long title.
“The two major wins is great, so that’s got to be a successful year,” said Harrington ahead of his title defence. “I probably haven’t played as well in the regular events. I just haven’t been getting off to a great start. You’ve got to get scoring well, you’ve got to get low. I haven’t been really holing the putts to shoot the 6, 7 under pars.
“I think I shot 20 under here last year or so. Yeah, the (inaudible) tougher week where I’m not under as much pressure to make birdies, but I did it last year but I do need to get on a good run and see some putts going in, see some low scores. There’s nothing wrong with my physical game at the moment, it’s just I’m just not scoring low enough.”
The 54-year-old is no stranger to successful title defences having won the 2007 and 2008 Open Championships in his pomp. But he has never completed a hat trick of tournament wins and he feels the key will be to maintain his aggression.
“It’s nice to think about but I’m not going to put myself — to be honest, when you come into a tournament defending, you have a certain level of expectation. So it kind of feels Tee-Scripts.com 2 like on the first day that you’re already on top of the leaderboard, so you end up being a little bit defensive. Anybody with a lead in a tournament on a Sunday, there is a little bit of, you get a little bit, don’t make mistakes. When you’re defending a tournament, you can start the tournament that way, which isn’t a great way to be. You’ve got to free up and let it happen. As I said, if 20 under par won last year, you’ve got to expect something like that this year.
“So yeah, you’ve got to go low and try and get all this — nobody’s giving me anything to start the week. It doesn’t matter that I’m the defending champion, I don’t start 1 under par, 2 under par. I don’t get a handicapped start. So everything has to be earned, it’s a new tournament. So just got to go and play good golf like any other week and maybe try and get the fact that you’re defending, it’s not that you can’t get it out of your head because obviously you get asked about it, but you’ve got to understand that that’s the great thing about golf, nobody gives you anything.
“Like if you shoot, you’re six ahead going into the last round, you don’t get to say “I’m the winner.” You have to finish the tournament out, you have to play the golf. So nobody gives you anything, you’ve got to go do it. Being defending champion is nice, puts a little bit of extra pressure, a little bit of extra stress, but it’s not of any help.”
