Padraig Harrington wins British Open again; Norman ties for third

SOUTHPORT, England – A redefinition of the human age 53 happened to some extent here, just not to the extent daydreamed about on Sunday morning.

Having stunned and delighted Royal Birkdale and the golfing planet by leading the 137th British Open after three rounds in his golfing dotage, Greg Norman found realism today with a 77 that deflated the theme even as the light shone on Norman’s playing partner.

That would be Padraig Harrington of Ireland, whose 32 on the back nine of a snarling course and his five-wood to an eagle on No. 17 would have to rank among the stalwart Sunday exhibits, as well as making Harrington the first European repeat titlist in 102 years.

Those shots mixed with other gems to cook up Harrington’s luminous one-under-par 69 – one of only six under-par scores on another fiercely windy day – giving him a three-over par 283 for the tournament, four shots ahead of Englishman Ian Poulter and, ultimately, six shots ahead of Henrik Stenson and Norman.

“The way he finished, a true champion finishes that way,” Norman said.

The way Norman finished involved neither the graphic heartbreak nor the graphic collapse that came to be his Sunday definition in the 1980s and 1990s. True, he came to No. 1 at 2:20 p.m. leading Harrington and K.J. Choi by two shots, then bogeyed the first three holes to trail Harrington by one by 3 p.m. But he cobbled together enough pars while Harrington strained somewhat to lead by one shot heading for the back nine.

He did bogey No. 10, but perhaps not even the absent Tiger Woods could’ve quite matched Harrington’s Nos. 13 through 17, which included birdies on Nos. 13 and 15 and that eagle on No. 17.

When Harrington’s tee shot left him 249 from the pin in the 17th fairway, he held a three-shot lead over Norman and he fretted slightly about what might happen if Norman made eagle. “I wanted to take it on,” he said, and so he took his beloved five-wood and sent a beaut airborne.

Even before it finished traveling, Harrington’s caddie Ronan Flood broke with convention and began extolling a shot which would reach the green of the par five, curl around the left of the cup and halt obediently three feet beyond.

“Once I hit that,” Harrington said of the putt, “I knew I’d won the Open.”

He led by four over the finished Poulter, and that left none of the 18th-hole suspense and drudgery that clouded Harrington’s win over Sergio Garcia last year at Carnoustie, Scotland, when Harrington twice hit it into the meandering Barry Burn on No. 18, double-bogeyed that hole and had to wait agonizingly for Garcia to miss a six-foot par putt to squeeze into a playoff.

Instead, there would be just a victory walk for a 36-year-old who brought new meaning to an irksome wrist injury – “I felt afresh,” he said of his lack of practice rounds – and a disappointing walk for a 53-year-old.

Later, packing up things by his locker, Norman said, “I’m not as disappointed as I was in the ’80s and ’90s, that’s for sure. It’s a different disappointment. Of course you want to close it out. But at the same time you’ve got to take a little stock of the situation.”

The situation included high age and low preparation, his golf limited to five tournaments and 15 rounds this year, his lead-in weeks filled with his wedding three weeks ago to tennis star Chris Evert, and his absence from the last 11 major tournaments before this.

Now, by finishing top-four here, he qualified for the 2009 Masters, which he hadn’t even realized and didn’t want to think about it.

So as two two-time champions walked up No. 18, “I thanked him for his company,” Harrington said, and with a standing ovation moments later after Norman putted out, so did British golf fans.