Harrington Lights-Up Weather-Affected Valero Texas Open First Round

1 year ago by Comments Off on Harrington Lights-Up Weather-Affected Valero Texas Open First Round

Padraig Harrington superbly handled the dull and overcast conditions in lighting-up the host course on the opening day of the Valero Texas Open in San Antonio.

Harrington pared the last near 5pm local time, and almost eight hours after his initial scheduled tee-time, to eventually end his round then tied for lead with a four-under-par 68 also on a rain-softened TPC San Antonio course.

Harrington joined American Matt Kuchar on four-under, with Kuchar out two groups ahead of Harrington and also off the 10th tee, grabbing six birdies in his 68.

With Kuchar aged 44 and Harrington 51, that’s an average age of around 47-years among the two atop of the board.

“I’m pleased with my round, as I have been feeling good about my game”, he said

“I’ve just been looking for it to come together.  You have days where one part will come together but another part won’t, so today I holed a few nice putts, I got up-and-down nicely and that’s what you have to do on a windy day.

“I would say it was a good mental performance more than anything else”,

The start of play in the record-setting $8.9m event was delayed and then when play got underway there was another day, with nearly three hours lost, with new-inducted Hall of Fame Harrington walking from the course near 5pm local time sharing the early lead with a round that included six birdies and two bogeys.

Harrington, 51, is looking to win on the first time on the PGA since 2015 in capturing a second Honda Classic title. Of course, he showed last year with four wins in a maiden full second on the Champions Tour that he still knows what it takes to win and he was doing just that the Lone Star State’s second-largest city.

Of note, the last time Harrington was within a few shots of the lead in a PGA Tour was at PGA National in Florida.

The Dubliner commenced his round from the 10th but he was soon stuggling in three-putting the 12th hole for bogey but he superbly bounced back with Harrington grabbing birdies at the 14th, 17th, 18th and the 1st hole on his scorecard to be knocking loudly on the leading door.

While Harrington was going low, the fog gave way to wind making it’s presence felt while the players were now facing intermittent rain.

The triple major champ bogeyed the second hole but then picked-up back-to-back birdies at holes four and five, or his 13th and 14th holes thanks to respective putts of 17-feet and 11-feet, and with birdie at his 14th sending Harrington into the lead.

 

Harrington was not deterred launching a 333-yard drive down the par-5 eighth hole but he made a mess of his second that was well left leaving himself a smart option of sending his third into a greenside bunker ahead of holing a three-footer for a smart par ahead of a par at the last.

Of course, and it is only the first day however Harrington has already put himself in position to secure a repeat Masters inviation, and also what would be a 16th drive down Magnolia Lane with the assurance of an Augusta National tee time.

Though Harrington does need to improve his driving accuracy hitting just five of 14 TPC San Antonio, and with the shortest club in his Wilson Staff bag helping put into the lead.

In fact, Harrington superbly one-putted 11 of 18 greens, including from his 13th hole to 17th holes.

FOOTNOTE .. Updated am Friday.

Later joining Harrington and Kuchar to share the early lead was MJ Daffue and Roberto Diaz.

Just 69 players in the now 143-player field managed to complete their rounds in the $8.9m event.

 



Comments are closed.