Padraig Harrington - the British Open - the eagle has landed
British Open Golf. The second shot on the 17th on the last day was the defining moment. Padraig Harrington swung a flat iron whacked the ball Dambuster’s style so it skidded over the jaws of the bunkers and curled round under the flag to within two paces of the hole. He had not need to do it. It was a par five. He was two shots ahead and could have played safe for par. But it was the most audacious noble sporting shot of the summer, brave, heroic and compelling. Harrington emerged out of the swirling eye of the storms that had battered Royal Birkdale for four days and in the relative sunshine, a half smile on his lips played that sweetest of shots whweile everyone else was blown of course in the rough, in the bunkers. The brave, brave great white shark himself, Storming Norman, Greg Norman dropped 30 yards behind Harrington and in the bunker, a sad admission of tiredness, of age, of the elements, of concession that for Harrington the eagle had landed and with it a second successive British Open title. He had been 15/1 before the start, but on the course he never really looked like relinquishing his hold on the old claret jug unless Norman’s successive acts of genius might have snatched it from him. Just behind them Ian Poulter’s last day touch almost made him briodesmaid and he had been 65/1 at the beginning and even long odds on the Bristol amateur Chris Woods, all of which bodes well for the Ryder Cup to be held at Valhalla, Louisville Kentucky in September.
