U.S. SENIOR OPEN CHAMPIONSHIP

June 29, 2025

Padraig Harrington

The Broadmoor (East Course)

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Q. Joined by the champion himself, Padraig Harrington with the trophy right here. Oldest USGA trophy by the way; 1894. Congrats, man.

PADRAIG HARRINGTON: Thank you very much. It's a beautiful trophy indeed.

Q. Haven't consumed anything out of there yet?

PADRAIG HARRINGTON: No, no. It's pristine. Get there though.

Q. Take me through the test that is the Broadmoor, the challenge mentally over the course of four days and what it means to win.

PADRAIG HARRINGTON: I think there is two big challenges on the course. Obviously you're at altitude and there a lot of up and down elevation. The second thing is the greens. You are always working back from the greens, where do you need to be for your approach shot, and then obviously where you're hitting into the greens you're trying to leave yourself an uphill putt.

At times if you play into the middle of the green it can be worse than short siding yourself because you're going up and over hills.

You got to make a lot of smart decisions out there and then follow through on them.

Q. And you said you made a lot of decisions on the fly. Today, hit driver on 13. Some players laid up there. Then 3-wood on 14, 3-wood on 15.

PADRAIG HARRINGTON: 5-wood on 14 actually. I was trying to layup the bunker and I hit a pass. I think I hit that 5-wood like 310 yards.

Q. Maybe the elevation?

PADRAIG HARRINGTON: It's up the hill. (Laughter.) Yeah, look, you're going to have to make decisions like that in the final round. The wind was changing a little bit. Certain shots you like, so 15 Stewart hit driver and didn't carry the bunker. I still went with 3-wood because I obviously lost the ball in the first round there.

Q. Were you 3-wood before he hit driver there?

PADRAIG HARRINGTON: I couldn't hit driver down there. I would be pushed so much down the right because I lost the ball on the left. As it turned out I might have carried the bunker with a 3-wood but I just couldn't take it on with driver.

Q. Talking about the shots, let's take a look. Talk us through some of the highlights from today in the final round out here. This was part of the 67 to finish up. So this was early on your second at the second.

PADRAIG HARRINGTON: Yeah, you know, there was quite a bit of slope so I carried the first slope; checked it up.

Q. Also spun that one, not like the chip on 18 yesterday.

PADRAIG HARRINGTON: Yeah, well, 18 was into the grain, yeah.

Q. Right, right.

PADRAIG HARRINGTON: This is a big putt for me. Not just because I holed it, but I hit it with a lot more freedom. Yesterday I really struggled on the greens. I hit a lot of very iffy putts. That was nice and pure.

Q. Birdie at 5 after Stewart made his at 5. That's kind of the way it went all day, back and forth with you guys.

PADRAIG HARRINGTON: I think my rebound was longer than my follow through. (Laughter.)

Q. Which you can have out here at the Broadmoor. This for birdie at the 9th.

PADRAIG HARRINGTON: Yeah, so I was definitely better today. Hit a few putts yesterday after the round. I was better on the greens, but still they put you under a lot of pressure.

Q. Can you work on freedom to putt on the course versus on the putting green?

PADRAIG HARRINGTON: It's hard but you can. Like I've suffered the dreadful yips over the years, so I know how to get through them.

But they come back every so often and yesterday was a bad day.

Q. With your freedom?

PADRAIG HARRINGTON: Yeah, I've got through it.

Q. You were going to tap-in initially.

PADRAIG HARRINGTON: Yeah, I suppose. I wasn't sure. My caddie, again was (indiscernible); I wasn't. That's why you need a good caddie.

Q. Talking with your caddie and we were talking right before going on here that shot at 18th and what you were going through. Second shot.

PADRAIG HARRINGTON: Yeah, I was walking up to the ball and I said look, bro, if I make birdie I win. Takes everything think out the equation. Ro just said something that I had heard from Hale Irwin over the years. Always hit the shot that you would hit if you were one shot behind.

So if you're one shot behind you would hit up there, take it on. Clearly even it puts new the right frame of mind that you're making the right decision. Because do you play into the in the middle of the green and play it safe and hope you two putt? What you hit when you're one shot behind, you go for it, hit it up there, and you take your chances.

Yeah, it gave a lot of clarity. I was happy I hit a good shot, I tell ya.

Q. We were doing a tournament in Mexico. You were there. Took you two days to get there. You said something profound to me. I'll never forget this. You said players on Tuesday practice for Thursdays, they don't practice enough for Sunday. What does that mean?

PADRAIG HARRINGTON: If you go into a tournament and you're confident, you should be trying to get yourself in the best mental state you can for Sunday. It's double the stress on Sunday, probably triple the stress.

Whereas players who are not sure of themselves are always going to overwork for Thursday morning because they want to make the cut. I was always one that overworked. I don't have a regret but I lost a lot of tournaments by burning out by Sunday.

Q. Interesting.

PADRAIG HARRINGTON: Here I'm comfortable. Look, here I'm not thinking I'm going to miss the cut. Touch wood that doesn't happen. I'm not thinking about that. If you brought me to a regular event Thursday afternoon I would be thinking about the cut line.

Whereas here I'm thinking how do I get myself into position. And even the first couple of days I got going and I could have got away from the field. I dropped back a couple drops. I was still going, all I want to be is with nine holes to go to give myself a chance and be in the right headspace at that time.

Q. People remember the shots you hit down the stretch and how about yesterday to finish off at 18, that third shot from in front of the green and how important it was?

PADRAIG HARRINGTON: This was is a three-shot swing. Looked like both the guys were going to birdie and go to nine, and that's going to go by. It didn't check as much as I wanted. I could have been 6-under and the guys 9-under.

Q. And you wouldn't have been in the last group either.

PADRAIG HARRINGTON: Yeah, it was a full three-shot swing. Look, I hit it as I wanted to with a gap wedge. It was into the grain. I'm actually surprised. I thought it wasn't going by, but looking at it now it's certainly going by five, six feet, isn't it? Look, you got to get these breaks. You have to.

Q. We talked about it numbers-wise yes to get it 8-under, get in the last group. But momentum-wise, mindset-wise because it was going the other way?

PADRAIG HARRINGTON: Yeah, absolutely. I believe in momentum for sure in rounds. You know, if you chip in in a round you feel good. You could hit three bad shots and hole it ten-footer for par and you forget about the three bad shots. Chip in for birdie after hitting a bad shot, you forget about it.

So momentum, not too sure it if it lasts overnight. I slept very nicely and felt very good about things going into today. I suppose all things came together. Being in the last group, being able to keep it -- Stewart was playing very well. Stewart hit 18 greens on Saturday and the two par-5s. If he two-putted everything, he would have shot 2-under. I knew he was playing good golf -- I think that might have been Friday. So I wanted to be there with him, I wanted to have that marker.

As it turned out during the round, we got going very good at the start and kept going. That was pretty good most of the way.

As it got into the back nine, when I took a one-shot lead on 11, I did -- I don't look at leaderboards, never look all the way around, but I asked my caddie just who was coming. When he told me Jimenez was 9 -- I didn't know he ever got to 10, but he told me he was 9 -- I was worried. He birdied the last two to beat Steve last week. He's just on that run. If there's anybody right at this moment that's going to birdie the last couple holes to win a tournament, it's Miguel.

Q. So you realized then where you were, but you don't look at leaderboards?

PADRAIG HARRINGTON: No, they get in the way. You start worrying about things you can't control if you look. There's a point in every round of golf or every Sunday round of golf that you need to know how you stand. I knew enough that I'm nip and tuck with Stewart, we're out in front. If myself and Stewart had got to 12-, 13-under or something like that, I wouldn't have even asked if anybody else was in it. I would have known it was just me and Stewart.

When we backed up -- not backed up, but when we stalled at 11 and 10, I started to feel, okay, some of the other guys might catch up with us. I needed to know if I needed to press or if I just needed to stay ahead of Stewart.

Q. Jimenez was making that charge with a 64 today.

PADRAIG HARRINGTON: I'm glad I didn't know he got to 10 (laughter).

Q. You said after you got the trophy that you were treating Stewart like a friend for 63 holes, you were just talking to him like it was no big deal, then you stopped talking to him on the back nine. Was it like match play?

PADRAIG HARRINGTON: I don't know if we stopped talking. We just got busy. There was one stage on the front nine, I forget, we had to full on belly laugh, we were joking away about things. We were very relaxed. Mark Hensby was very good to play with as well.

On the back nine we got busier. Obviously the guys in front of us got put on the clock. So then we got pushed onto the clock. When you're on the clock, you have to be right on top of things and pay attention. There's not a lot of conversation in those couple of holes.

Obviously we just played the last two holes, and it was nip and tuck at that stage.

Q. Congrats once again. It was great to watch coming down the stretch with Stewart Cink and that charge by Jimenez at the end. You closed it out. Your second win at the U.S. Senior Open. Well done.

PADRAIG HARRINGTON: Thank you.

Q. Great for the game.

PADRAIG HARRINGTON: It was entertaining, wasn't it?