Two weeks. Fourteen days. Almost half a month.
That’s the length of Rory McIlroy’s tenure as numero uno in the professional golfing world. Luke Donald reclaimed his position as king of the hill when he won a playoff in the Transitions Championship, played at Innisbrook Resort’s Copperhead Course in Palm Harbor, Fla. McIlroy, meanwhile, remained on the sidelines, preparing for the Masters two weeks hence.
The Transitions turned out to be aptly named, as a procession of names settled atop and then were booted from the top of its leaderboard. The first of those was Padraig Harrington. Remember him? He’s been something of a forgotten commodity recently, having fallen well down the Official World Golf Rankings, so much so that he didn’t qualify for the two World Golf Championship events that were played in recent weeks.
Harrington blistered the course on Thursday, shooting a career-best 61 to take a 3-stroke lead. His card featured 10 birdies and no bogeys. Thereafter, he wouldn’t put 10 birdies together over the remaining 54 holes. Harrington shot 2-over-par 73 on Friday to drop two strokes off the lead.
“Wasn’t a great deal of difference in the two rounds,” Harrington said after Friday’s round. “I hit some good iron shots that went close yesterday. I got a lot of shots that I liked and wanted yesterday. Today, you know, some things didn’t go well. Golf is a bit like that. There might have been three or four shots different than the way I played in the two days. There wasn’t 12 shots difference. I hope that’s as bad as I ever play, because I’d be thrilled if that was.”
Harrington followed with weekend rounds of 72 and 71, making for a total of nine bogeys and six birdies over the final 54 holes. He tied for 20th place with an aggregate 277, which was six strokes off the low number shared by four players, including Donald.
Donald won the tournament on the first playoff hole after finishing level with Robert Garrigus, Jim Furyk and Sang-Moon Bae. He birdied the 18th hole for the win and moved back to no. 1 on the Official World Golf Rankings.
