Wedge wizardry puts Harrington in position
Padraig Harrington's magical short game has given him a chance to win the Deutsche Bank Championship and the $10m FedEx Cup.
The Dubliner carded a third successive four under par 67 at TPC Boston on Sunday to trail leaders Steve Stricker, Retief Goosen and Sean O'Hair by a shot on 12 under par entering Monday's final round.
Since he saw Bob Torrance at the Open, got some closure up on his swing change and found a way of putting the ball in the fairway, Harrington has been liberated. He's also concentrated on his short game and judging by his bogey free third round, it's on fire.
The stats that Harrington sometimes likes to malign, show that he is 56th for driving accuracy and only 20th for greens hit in regulation this week.
In fact, the world No 9 missed eight greens on a blustery Sunday afternoon and got it up and down for par each time. His scrambling percentage for the week is over 88 percent. Superb.
He's made just three bogeys this week despite missing 17 of 54 greens in regulation. And even those mistakes will have annoyed him.
In the first round he bogeyed the sixth by three-putting from 38 feet.
In the second round he bogeyed the par three third by taking three to get down from the edge of the green.
His only big mistake this week came at the sixth in the second round. And this was actually a good bogey. Having driven into the left rough, he hit his second into a fairway bunker on the right, 163 yards from the pin.
He bunkered his third but, needless to say, he got it up and down for bogey.
Sunday's third round was similar. The Dubliner birdied with the first with a 96 yard approach to four feet and then picked up another shot at the par-five second with two putts from 34 feet.
After a boring stretch, his short game kicked in again on the back nine with four successive par saves: from greenside sand at the 10th; by chipping and putting from short of the par-three 11th; from 83 yards at the 12th after a pushed drive; and from more greenside sand at the 13th, where he holed from six feet for par.
After almost holing from 60 feet for birdie from the fringe of the 14th, he finally birdied 421-yard 15th when he hit a 140 yard approach inside five feet.
Long range birdie chances failed to drop at the 16th and 17th but Harrington made amends at the par five 18th, where his approach flew through the back into the rough.
Chipping back down the green, he ran just off the front but holed his birdie putt from 22 feet to end his day tied for fourth with Kevin Na and Scott Verplank, just a shot off the lead, on 12 under par.
God-like.