Congratulations to Padraig Harrington! He is the 2007 British Open Champion. He played some great golf and captured his first Major Title! Everyone knew that the finishing hole was going to be a great one to watch as players were coming in. It turned out to be. Garcia could have won the tournament with a par on 18 yesterday but was unable to pull it off...
Anywhere else, Padraig Harrington might have walked off the 18th green knowing his two shots that found the bottom of Barry Burn for double bogey had cost him the British Open.
Not at Carnoustie, where calamity can strike at any second and did during Sunday's final round.
One shot crashed off the stone wall of the burn and ricocheted 50 yards across the wrong fairway and out-of-bounds. Another bounced across a tiny bridge until it plunged over the side on the last hop. Still another looked like a hole-in-one until it smacked the base of the pin and caromed 18 feet away.
The final hour was golf theater at its best.
In a nail-biter that stirred memories of Jean Van de Velde's famous collapse in 1999, Harrington delivered the fitting finish to a day that kept everyone guessing. He took a two-shot lead to the final hole of a playoff, and still had to sweat out a 3-foot bogey putt to beat Sergio Garcia.
Read more from the Billy Florence Team Golf News article:
http://sports.espn.go.com/golf/britishopen07/news/story?id=2945279&campaign=rss&source=GOLFHeadlines
© News feature of Billy (Bill) Florence - Team DCI blog.