Padraig Harrington finds himself now in unfamiliar territory having lost full membership of the PGA Tour in missing the halfway cut in the Wyndham Championship in Greensboro, North Carolina.
Harrington walked from the Sedgefield Country Club course at 1pm local time having putted out for a par in a second straight score of a two over par 72 for four over par total and miss the expected halfway cut by five shots.
It is the first time since joining the PGA Tour full time in 2007 Harrington now finds himself without automatic Tour membership for the following season given his five-year exemption in capturing the 2008 PGA Championship, and his last win on any of the main tour’s, ended at the end of last year.
Padraig Harrington happy to sign autographs but now finds himself in unfamiliar territory after losing his PGA Tour card. (Photo – www.golfbytourmiss.com)
And after the euphoria of Rory McIlroy capturing a fourth Major Championship just four days ago, Harrington indicated he will not avail himself of the two options still open to him in playing full time in the 2014/15 wraparound schedule.
They include taking up a one-time Tour exemption by inside the top-50 on the all-time money list or contesting the secondary Web-com ‘Final Four Series, the Dubliner will seek to rely on invitations.
“I probably won’t take my top 50 exemption and just look for invitations,” he said.
“I’m thinking I’ll probably play a few more PGA Tour events next year and I’ll play some of the Fall season before Christmas and pretty much try and play the same events as this year and add a few more in and see how we’ll go with that.
“I could do with not playing but when you’re not in the all the Majors and the WGC events it’s very difficult to make up your numbers.
“It was never a problem for me before but it’s just difficult if you’re not in the top 50 in the world so I’ll probably end up playing 34 events this year once the new season starts later this year.
“So I will try and to that and get off to a good start because they had already played 12 tournaments into the ‘13/’14 season before I played over here.”
And Harrington’s other concern is that he is currently five European Tour events short this year of playing the mandatory 13 to retain full membership.
Harrington has entered next fortnight’s Italian Open while there’s a further 10 after Turin he could play to satisfy the European Tour criteria.
After handing in his score card Harrington again to his enormous credit signed autographs but when asked by one youngster how he had played, he responded: “Not very good”.
In fact, Harrington managed three birdies but also three bogeys and a 15th hole triple bogey where he four-putted from 50 feet.
“My expectations were very high this week but I just didn’t play well,” he said.
“I just can’t get out of my own way. I’m certainly working on some good things but it will probably happen when I least expect it.
“I changed my putting substantially this week but it’s different when you get under the gun. I putted terribly yesterday and had a four-putt today.
Over the years I would get very high reputation of being a good putter but I’ve never been in the top 25 in putting over here, and I’ve only touched there once.
“I’ve made a change and hopefully that pans out. If I hadn’t seen the stats I would have stuck with what I had. I started out on Thursday putting terrible and it went all through my game.”
