Padraig Harrington is in a kind of middle ground in his career. Now 53, the Irishman is one of the best players on the PGA Tour Champions. In three years on the circuit, he has nine wins in 48 starts and nearly $7 million in earnings. This season, he has three wins, including a Charles Schwab Cup playoff event, the third year in a row he’s won a playoff tournament.
But he still likes to measure his game against the best and in 2024 he played seven PGA Tour events. But “these guys are good,” as the saying goes, and Harrington found some tough sledding.
“At the Scottish Open this year on the regular tour I was definitely leaning towards playing more on the Champions tour. I felt a little bit out of my depth,” he admitted on a Zoom call during a media day at Phoenix Country Club ahead of the 2024 Charles Schwab Cup Championship.
Harrington played seven PGA Tour events in 2024, missed the cut in five of them and was a combined 13 over but he also just missed a top 20 at the Open Championship, shooting even par at Royal Troon Golf Club.
| Tournament | Finish | Scores |
|---|---|---|
| Mexico Open at Vidanta | T-52 | 72-66-72-70 |
| Cognizant Classic in The Palm Beaches | Missed cut | 71-73 |
| Texas Children’s Houston Open | Missed cut | 70-74 |
| Valero Texas Open | Missed cut | 75-75 |
| PGA Championship | Missed cut | 77-75 |
| Genesis Scottish Open | Missed cut | 70-71 |
| The Open Championship | T-22 | 72-73-71-72 |
“I played nicely at the Open and I played nicely at a few European Tour events and so I will probably go into next year the same way I went into this year, playing my favorite events on the regular tour, the PGA Tour, and on the Champions tour,” he said. “I’ve not quite given up on the old guys as of yet but certainly there was moments this year where I was thinking ‘What am I doing?’”
On the PGA Tour Champions, Harrington played 14 events, earned 13 top 25s, seven top 10s and three wins.
| Tournament | Finish | Scores |
|---|---|---|
| Chubb Classic | T-15 | 69-70 |
| Cologuard Classic | T-14 | 70-70-65 |
| Hoag Classic Newport Beach | 1 | 63-67-69 |
| Insperity Invitational | T-19 | 70-72 |
| Regions Tradition | T-8 | 65-70-69-74 |
| KitchenAid Senior PGA Championship | T-17 | 74-68-70-67 |
| Dick’s Open | 1 | 68-65-68 |
| U.S. Senior Open Championship | T-16 | 66-71-69-71 |
| The Senior Open Championship | T-5 | 71-70-73-72 |
| Rogers Charity Classic | T-7 | 65-64-70 |
| The Ally Challenge | T-63 | 73-74-72 |
| SAS Championship | 2 | 66-67-71 |
| Dominion Energy Charity Classic | T-11 | 72-66-72 |
| Simmons Bank Championship | 1 | 67-65-67 |
Harrington is in the field of 36 for the Schwab, Nov. 7-10. He won the tournament two years ago and he’s currently fourth in the points. He’ll be among the favorites to win the tournament again but he’s also put himself in position to claim the season-long championship.
“When I’m out here on the Champions tour, and you play well, you think ‘This is brilliant,’ but the better you play on the Champions tour, the more you think you can beat the young guys so it’s kind of a Catch 22 in that sense that if you start winning on the Champions tour you think, ‘Oh maybe I can do it on the regular tour.’”
The last of Harrington’s PGA Tour wins came in the 2015 Honda Classic. His last top-10 was at the 2023 Valero Texas Open. He also has 15 international wins on his resume.