Padraig Harrington: 'I expected the nerves, I didn't expect the emotion'
The two-time champion golfer of the year shaved the night before to save himself five minutes after an alarm that he set for 4am. He prepared for the ceremonial tee shot by hitting the planned 3-iron almost three dozen times on the range.
What he wasn't ready for was the well of emotion as he approached that first tee, not least because he had spotted an empty grandstand coming off the range, but one that was quickly filled as those queuing patiently were ushered in.
'I expected the nerves, I didn't expect that [emotion]. So I did have to adjust myself for that.'
It was, said the 53-year-old, special. His first swing left him smack bang in the middle of the fairway and he followed it up with a second 3-iron to 15 feet and a birdie putt that he made and gave him a "serious buzz".
Things soured after that, the Dubliner carding a four-over 75 that included a double bogey on 10 when he lost his ball, much to his surprise after a shot that he thought had found some minor rough, off the tee.
'Through the start maybe there was a little bit of hype in it, the three-putting 3 and 4. I just struggled. Three three-putts in the first seven holes, it just kills you when you're always thinking about your pace as you're standing over the ball.
'You're always questioning your lines.
'Yeah, it was a tough day on the greens, and it just ate into my game. Might have been a little bit of the fact that I was hyped up for the 1st tee box. Who knows? Certainly felt like I played better, could have played better, should have played better, scored better.
'I don't feel like there's anything wrong with my putting, and I had a horrible day on the greens. It's one of those things. That's the nature of the game, links golf. I'd love to be… yeah, I'd love to be a bit better, but it wasn't for a lack of trying.'
Tom McKibbin, one of his two playing partners for the morning, couldn't beat the par 71 either. A bogey at the last consigned the Ulsterman to a one-over round that included his own double bogey, his one coming at the 11th.
The 22-year-old was two-over after three and then joint leader, at two-under, at one point, but he described his round as a mix of some good and bad after struggling on the wind off the left through most of the round.
Like Harrington, who wasn't thrilled to be reminded of Rory McIlroy's travails at the first tee on opening day at Royal Portrush in 2019, McKibbin had spent plenty of time thinking about that first shot before his alarm call at 3.30am.
'I think Rory's made that tee shot a lot scarier,' he joked. 'That's all I could probably think about for the last three days. I wouldn't say I was too nervous. I just didn't really want to hit that bad of a shot. Yeah, I was very happy to get it sort of underway.
'Yeah, a little bit nervous and a little bit scared of hitting that shot.'
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
The Irish Sun
2 hours ago
- The Irish Sun
Open star Christiaan Bezuidenhout was minutes from death when he accidentally drank RAT POISON at the age of two
NOT many punters tipped Christiaan Bezuidenhout for The Open, but the South African is used to beating the odds. Bezuidenhout, 31, was left fighting for his life when he accidentally drank RAT POISON at the age of two. Advertisement 3 Christiaan Bezuidenhout is an unlikely challenger for The Open Credit: Shutterstock Editorial 3 Christiaan Bezuidenhout tees off on the sixth hole Credit: Getty He somehow survived but was left with a stutter and a damaged nervous system that required years on prescription drugs . Bezuidenhout also had to overcome bullying as he defied expectations to become one of the brightest golfing prospects. And he is in the mix for the greatest prize in golf with an opening round of 67 in the 153rd Open at Royal Portrush. Bezuidenhout was a toddler when he took a swig from a bottle he found on the street which he thought contained Coca-Cola - but the drink had been replaced by poison. Advertisement read more in golf He said 'There was a two-litre Coke bottle standing there with rat poison in it. 'Somehow I managed to open it and took a sip. 'At the hospital they basically told my parents we got there just in time. It was a matter of minutes.' The terrible accident left him with a range of health issues including a crippling stammer. Advertisement Most read in Golf BEST FREE BETS AND BETTING SIGN UP OFFERS Bezuidenhout said: 'I almost died. 'The poison affected the whole nervous system, and one of the long-term effects led to me having a stutter. "I was diagnosed with anxiety when I was four. This led to me becoming very introverted and depressed. Advertisement 'I went on to see various speech therapists. I was pretty much a loner growing up, most of the time I was just doing my own thing every day. 'A good few times people made fun of it, thought it all was funny. It wasn't smooth sailing.' Golf became his escape from the bullies, a place where he could be alone on the course. Bezuidenhout developed into a fine young player but when he won trophies, he ducked out of the prize giving ceremonies because of his speech impediment. Advertisement Tense moment as furious Jon Rahm confronts golf fan at The Open He said; 'I was always a loner, practised on my own. I took myself away from people and places with people there. Golf was like an escape from my circumstances. 'Most of the people in South Africa knew my situation so most of the time when I won junior tournaments, I just didn't speak. I got my trophy and left.' And he was later banned from golf for nine months for taking drugs to combat his stutter - before 'slowly" gaining confidence in the last few years. His fine amateur career was hamstrung during a visit to Portrush in 2014 for the British Amateur Championship . Advertisement He was banned for two years but the suspension was later reduced to nine months. Bezuidenhout received the news just as he was about to represent South Africa at the World Amateur Team Championship . He was heartbroken, saying: 'It was awful. It was a huge goal of mine to be selected to the team. It felt like my life was over.' Advertisement However the ban proved to be the making of him. He said: 'I actually just accepted it The Open 2025 ONE of the most anticipated Opens in years is finally here. Can THE OPEN 2025 LIVE - Follow all the latest updates from Royal Portrush TIPS AND FREE BETS ALL YOU NEED TO KNOW... The Open 2025 schedule and tee times TOP STORIES... 3 Christiaan Bezuidenhout hits his opening drive on day two Credit: Getty 'This is who I am and if you don't like it then so be it. Advertisement 'That was like a mind switch for me. There was quite a lot of negativity and people talking about me taking medication to get an advantage or improve my game. 'I was determined to show those people that I can play well without that. I took those nine months and worked really hard then came back stronger.' Bezuidenhout turned professional in 2015 and has won ten tournaments since then including the South African Open. Victory at Royal Portrush would cap a remarkable comeback from his horror childhood accident. Advertisement
Irish Examiner
16 hours ago
- Irish Examiner
Some discomfort but no squirming this time as McIlroy survives first day at Portrush
Paul McGinley is voicing a diddly-eye ad for Irish tourism this week. Padraig Harrington, a man who seems to know his ice cream, has been bragging that the 99s at this 'Irish' Open are better than anywhere else on the Championship rota. There's times when all this stuff, all this back-patting, can feel a bit corny. A bit much. Then you stand beside the first tee at Royal Portrush's Dunluce links just after three o'clock on Thursday and you're blown away by the scene stretching out before you. Ireland really does do golf well. On both sides of the ropes. To see that sea of people, four and five deep, all the way down the 420-yard hole known as 'Hughie's' was to imagine what the Circus Maximus must have looked like when Rome was at its peak and charioteers were risking lives and limbs. Rory McIlroy wasn't in any physical danger when he stood over his first shot at the 153rd Open, but this didn't lack any for drama given the torture that unfolded here in 2019 when he hooked his first ball left and out of bounds and signed for a quadruple bogey. Do we have to bother adding that he went and missed the cut? His entire first round six years ago was an exercise in squirming discomfort: for him and for the rest of us. There was discomfort this time but no squirming. Armed with that breakthrough Masters title and career Grand Slam since April, McIlroy rode this one out. Though his drive found rough down the left, it stayed in bounds. And if a missed tiddler that landed him with an opening bogey wasn't great then it was no disaster. The worst of it was over. He could look the rest of the course in the eye again, on equal terms. 'Absolutely incredible,' he said. 'Look, I feel the support of an entire country out there, which is a wonderful position to be in. But at the same time, you don't want to let them down. So there's that little bit of added pressure. 'I felt like I dealt with it really well today. Certainly dealt with it better than I did six years ago,' he added with a knowing laugh. 'I was just happy to get off to a good start and get myself into the tournament. 'I was sort of surprised: there's a few guys at four-under, but I'm surprised four-under is leading. I thought someone might have gone out there and shot six or seven today. Only three back with 54 holes to go, I'm really happy with where I am.' By the 10th he had found four birdies, avoided any more bogeys and sat just one shot off the lead on three-under. Much more like it from the man who was still very much a boy when he took just 61 strokes to set a course record here back in 2006. It wasn't nearly as smooth as that sounds. His driving was all over the place and, while his chipping and putting was standing up to the test, an aversion to fairways that left him ranked third-last in the field off the tee was always likely to demand payment. He had to dig deep into his pocket eventually. Three bogeys in four holes, from 11 to 14, dragged him back to level par, and into doubt. He needed a huge putt from 12 feet on 15 and an up-and-down on Calamity's par-three 16th to avoid slipping in to over-par status as the day pushed into a 15th hour of play. That save on the 15th felt pivotal at the time. Like one of those sliding door moments that are highlighted and discussed with great solemnity on those retrospective interviews and documentaries when people turn a corner and sink to their knees on a Sunday. 'Yeah, it was important. It was a big putt, especially having bogeyed three of the last four at that point. That was important. It was a huge putt to keep whatever momentum I had. Then after that, playing those last three holes at one-under was great.' It was a brilliant approach from deep rough at the 17th that set up the 12-footer for birdie, and he flirted with another on the 18th hole to leave him with a one-under par 70 despite all that trouble off the tee. It could have been better, it could have been worse. Never a dull moment with McIlroy. 'I had it going [at] three-under through 10 and let a few slip there around the middle of the round. I steadied the ship well, played the last four at one-under, and it was nice to shoot under par. 'I felt like once we turned for home, played 10 and turned back [away from the clubhouse] and played 11, the wind picked up a little bit and it just became that little bit more difficult. 'Yeah, it was a tough enough day, especially either chopping out of the rough or out of the fairway bunkers most of the time. So to shoot under-par was a good effort.' Not too shabby at all, given all that and the ghosts of 2019.
Irish Times
17 hours ago
- Irish Times
Open Championship: Calamity Corner shows its teeth at windswept Royal Portrush
From the tee, all the players could see was a wall of umbrellas in the small stand behind the green. There spectators hunkered and scrambled to prevent their only cover from the rain taking off across the Portrush dunes towards Scotland. The humid sunshine and comfortable temperatures of Wednesday, which made Dunluce Castle and the basalt White Rocks look picture postcard, gave way to the squalling showers and gusting winds of Thursday morning, where the 16th hole, a gem of the Dunluce course, lived up to its name. 'Calamity' – an event causing great and often sudden damage or distress; a disaster. The iconic par-3 yielded just 24 birdies across four rounds in the 148th Open, the fewest of any hole. While it seemed mildly perverse waiting for misadventure and catastrophe to befall the players coming through Calamity Corner in brutal conditions, the hole's reputation preceded it. READ MORE Tom McKibbin , in the first group out with Pádraig Harrington and Nicolai Højgaard, would have known of the course's beauties and dangers and the chasm on the right of the 16th hole, where the ball can fall as far as 40 feet. And so it went, with the LIV player's ball kicking into the drop as the gallery groaned. But McKibbin recovered well, and walked off with his par. The ideal shot or bale-out area was left, but with the wind gusting up to 30km/h and pushing the balls towards the lush ravine, and with rain in their faces, it would have taken more club than in the practice days. Niklas Nørgaard, in the sixth group that came through, also found his tee shot falling away into the thick of the rift, forcing a deft scramble down the incline after it came to rest 28 yards from the pin. His recovery drew a gasp from the crowd as the ball flew across the green, stopping just short of a television camera. His third was to four feet, four inches and his putt pitifully horseshoed out of the cup, leaving him shaking his head. England's Lee Westwood on the 16th green on day one of the Open Championship at Royal Portrush. Photograph: Mike Egerton/PA Wire The double bogey helped the Danish golfer to an ugly six-over round for the day. Playing in the same group, Byeong-Hun An also saw his ball disappear down the slope and fall into what is quaintly described as the 'native area 14 yards from the flag'. He hacked out to 10 feet from the pin but missed the putt and walked away with a bogey. 'The weather here is the craziest weather pattern I've ever experienced in my life,' said Jason Day, who hit to the fringe on 16, walked away with a par and then weather-shamed the local forecasters. 'There's no consistency to it whatsoever. You look at the weather – I mean, I'd love to be a weatherman here. You just get it wrong all the time.' By 5pm the hole had given up 10 birdies to the field, 53 pars and 21 bogeys. Darren Clarke was another one of the victims. Like McKibbin, Clarke knows how the course can show its teeth and his tee shot also came to rest short and right, 18 yards from the pin. His recovery was good to eight feet, but again the ball refused to drop. [ Calamity Corner: Open players will want to steer clear of Royal Portrush 16th's 'card wrecker' chasm Opens in new window ] Even from the back of the stand, as the wind whistled through, the wet, heavy air could not conceal that famously furious Clarke face, as he left with bogey on his way to a four-over finish for the day. 'Sixteen was playing tough. That's not the hole where you want the worst of the weather,' said England's Jordan Smith, who finished on level par for the round and with a birdie on 16. 'Yeah, that was a tricky 4-iron from about 200 yards. Absolutely pummeled by the wind and the rain on 16. That made a short, easy hole usually a really, really tough hole. Obviously made it look really easy making birdie.' It wasn't always doom and gloom at Calamity Corner and when Matt Fitzpatrick came through in group 16 with Hideki Matsuyama and Ryan Fox, all three ended up disappearing down the slope with their anxious caddies hoping for a lucky break. Matsuyama and Fox scrambled well to get up and down with Fitzpatrick, not visible from ground level, pitching straight into the hole. 'A bit of luck, obviously,' said the English player, who finished the day on four under par. 'Sometimes you need that. You need that. I thought I could play a bit aggressive after watching Foxy and Hideki leave them a bit short. Obviously, it just came out a little bit harder than I anticipated and on the perfect line.' Everybody loves a blind shot on to a slick green in the rain from a lush, wet position 30 feet below the surface. And at the Open they are now beginning to enjoy it.
