Padraig Harrington becomes fifth to win Open and Senior Open titles; Rory McIlroy in attendance
BERKSHIRE, England — Padraig Harrington was so focused on his game that he didn't notice a leaderboard or see Rory McIlroy walking in the gallery Sunday at the ISPS Handa Senior Open. He closed with a 3-under 67 to win his second senior major of the year.
Staked to a two-shot lead, Harrington made eagle on the first hole on the Old Course at Sunningdale and no one got closer than two shots the rest of the way as he became the fifth player with a Senior Open and an Open title.
He won by three shots over Thomas Bjorn (67) and Justin Leonard (68).
'I'm thrilled to have won but very satisfied that I've won a Senior Open with my two Opens,' Harrington said. 'The fact that only five people have ever done it is quite special. I'm quite proud that I've managed to survive this long in the game.'
He joined Darren Clarke, Tom Watson, Gary Player and Bob Charles as players to have won The Open and the senior version.
McIlroy walked around for a bit on the London-area course, though it wasn't much of a show. Harrington seized control late in the third round and never gave anyone much of a chance.
Bjorn made a late charge to get within two shots, but that ended with a bogey on the 16th.
'The only time I saw a leaderboard was on 18,' said Harrington, who said he asked his caddie for an update on the 17th hole. 'Was fully focused on what I was doing.
The Irishman was surprised to hear McIlroy, who is building a home in London, was at Sunningdale for the final round.
'I didn't see him out there. Was he out there?' Harrington said. 'I had the head down all day. I never saw anybody. I had no idea.'
Harrington now has 11 titles on the PGA Tour Champions, and he has won multiple times each of the last four seasons. He won the U.S. Senior Open last month at The Broadmoor. And he nearly won the Senior PGA Championship at Congressional until a late two-shot swing gave the title to Angel Cabrera.
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It sounds clichéd, but it's very true; I found you really do have to find satisfaction and real joy in the everyday journey of getting better. 'The vast majority of athletes who are successful at anything start as young kids, doing it for fun — for some kind of intrinsic motivation. But sometimes the reasons why you do it can get lost along the way.' Brownlee's realisation of his 'why' came one morning in the period after London 2012, when he got up one morning and had no real reason to go to training. Regardless, he went along, got into the pool and started swimming up and down. 'After 20 minutes of swimming as hard as I could for no reason at all, it hit me — 'This is just what I do. It's who I am. I'm not here to train for races or for any particular reason, this is just fundamentally who I am'. Even now, I'm out cycling and running pretty much every day. It's very much part of my DNA.' 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It's trying to stay in that level emotional state where you're consistent in how you are with people around you and how you train.' When he heard Scheffler's comments before The Open, Bell says they resonated with the part of him that remembers how quickly life moves on. He looks back on multiple victories — particularly those against Australia, the arch-enemy for an English cricketer — as amazing experiences he would love to re-live but also recalls how 'everyone talks about it for 48 hours, then life carries on. All that work you put in as a young sportsperson to get there and you have this feeling that life will be so different or a certain way, and sometimes it doesn't feel like that.' For Bell, it means Scheffler has the perfect mindset to succeed. 'He wasn't putting any pressure on himself or on an outcome, even though he still got that outcome,' he says. 'It's a nice place to be as an athlete when you're not living or dying on your results and realise there's a bigger picture.' It all seems so contradictory to the rhetoric we often hear about success requiring an 'all-in' attitude. In reality, says Qureshi, 'it's about finding the right state. Some people (in professional golf) perform much better when they have an intensity which goes from Tuesday (when they arrive for a tournament) to Sunday (the final round). Others perform better when they do a small amount on the range, then come back and play with their kids. You find what works for you. 'Intensity really is in the impact moment; when you find yourself in the rough, when you're deciding on your course management, that's when we need to react with intensity, commitment and execution.' Advertisement Glover had success with both approaches during her rowing career. In her twenties, the sport was her everything. Later, after getting married and starting a family, that changed. While she maintained her aggression in her racing and training, she also came to realise 'there are aspects of life which I would drop rowing for in a heartbeat'. She would look at her team-mates, who were largely still in their twenties, and recognise that they felt differently. 'And that was cool, because it had been the same for me,' Glover says. 'Our definition of success will change. It's exciting that you'll find different things in your life that give you a massive sense of satisfaction. It doesn't always have to be finishing first.' Even taking this individual approach into account, Scheffler's closing sentiment in his pre-Open press conference was perhaps the one that raised most eyebrows: 'I love to put in the work. I love getting to practice. I love getting to live out my dreams. But at the end of the day, sometimes I just don't understand the point.' This sentiment is all about perspective, says Qureshi, and recognising that where you are in your life will create a new way of seeing what you do, how you do it and why. And the impact of that is hard to predict. 'If Scheffler is now seeing golf in a different manner to 10 years ago, he might be questioning it in a way that takes him away from performance or towards better performance,' says Qureshi. 'Would you be surprised if, in the next few years, he says, 'I'm giving up the game, I've achieved what I want to'? Or would you be surprised if he goes on and does even more and plays longer because he's found a state of mind and compartmentalised it in regard to the other elements of his life?'. It could be either. For Qureshi, what's most important is to understand that for athletes who do reach the very top of their sport, the outcome is often not the only thing that matters. He was working with another golfer, Paul McGinley, in 2005 when the Irishman was in contention to win the WGC-Bridgestone Invitational tournament in the United States going into its fourth and final day. 'Tiger Woods had barely hit a fairway for three days but ended up winning,' recalls Qureshi. 'In his interview afterwards, you could see that his excitement and exhilaration had come from the manner in which he'd played golf, not necessarily from the outcome. Advertisement 'He was pleased with how he responded and reacted to the mistakes he made. He was robust, resilient, committed. Players at this level get a lot out of understanding how they're playing the game as much as what they're achieving.' Ultimately, Scheffler is showing that there is more than one route to success. And his words have clearly resonated with athletes from a variety of sports. Before Formula One's Belgian Grand Prix last weekend, McLaren driver Lando Norris — a huge golf fan who plays off an eight handicap — said he related to the American's words. But his main takeaway is a pertinent one: 'Just let the person be whatever they want to be. They don't have to live the exact life that you think they should, or say what you think they should. 'He lives very much his own way, and I think it's quite cool to see someone like that achieving what he is. You have to respect that.' Additional reporting: Luke Smith
