Three-time major champion Padraig Harrington has admitted his success on the senior tour is proving counter-productive. And the Irishman may have also given an insight into why the great Tiger Woods is reluctant to join him when he turns 50 in December next year.
Harrington, 53, is in his third season playing PGA Tour Champions events, where his form has been prolific.
In his 14 starts in 2024, he’s won three times, notched seven top-10 finishes, and is yet to miss a cut.
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He’ll also start as one of the favourites for the Charles Schwab Cup Championship at the Phoenix Country Club next week. But despite finishing tied for 22nd at the Open Championship at Royal Troon this year, Harrington has now warned he’s had to guard against his senior success wrongly giving him the impression he can still compete on the PGA Tour.
“When I’m out here on the Champions tour, and you play well, you think ‘this is brilliant,’” he said. “But the better you play on the Champions tour, the more you think you can beat the young guys.”
To underline his point, Harrington has played seven PGA Tour events this year, and missed the cut in five of them. “So it’s kind of a Catch 22 in that sense that if you start winning regularly on the Champions tour you start to think, ‘Oh maybe I can still do it on the regular tour,” he added.
Despite his physical issues Woods, 48, continues to compete in major championships. And despite only making the cut at the US Masters in 2024, where he eventually finished 60th, he’s regularly insisted he still believes he can win when participating,
He’s also long distanced himself from the senior tour, and has avoided making any kind of commitment to playing in future events. There is a perception that the 15-time major champion sees playing senior events as ‘retirement’ that goes against his ultra-competitive ethos.
But Harrington’s latest comments may also have inadvertently revealed the American’s biggest fear. Woods is unlikely to participate in anything that gives him a false perception of where he’s at as he fights to continue his legacy on the PGA Tour.
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Not that maintaining a PGA Tour Champions card would prove straightforward for the icon on a limited schedule. Harrington has also claimed that that the system is ‘cut-throat’ for those keen to play regularly.
“Just 36 to keep your card is very, very tight,” said the 2022 US Senior Open champion. “It doesn’t take much for you to drop out of that 36. So that’s why you see the guys out here practicing. And if you’re not one of the guys practicing, somebody else will do it for you. And that means you’ll slip out of your position.”
