Padraig Harrington and an official looked through a fence for Harrington's ball on the eighth hole Friday at Oakland Hills. (Franklin/Getty Images)
BLOOMFIELD TOWNSHIP, Mich. (PA) - Padraig Harrington admitted he was suffering a hangover from last month's Open Championship triumph as he stumbled to a second-round 74 at the PGA Championship.
Harrington started Friday in the upper echelons of the leaderboard after an opening 71 and made early progress with a birdie at the 10th hole where he started. However, he struggled to maintain his momentum and bogeys at 11 and 17 saw him go out in 36 shots.
He did briefly rally with a birdie at the first, but hit the buffers rather with three straight bogeys at the third, fourth and fifth. And another at the ninth, his final hole, left him conceding afterward that he did not feel in the right frame of mind to challenge for back-to-back majors.
The Dubliner, who is now 5 over, insisted the fallout from his Open victory at Birkdale had left him under-prepared for the task in hand at Oakland Hills.
"I just ran out of steam," he said of his second round. "It was a struggle for me. I did my best to be ready for the week, but clearly I'm not. What can I say? The harder I tried, the worse it got.
"I haven't got the focus this week," he added. "I'm just not with it. Obviously, I'm still just having a hangover after winning the Open."
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