Jul 26, 2025, 02:28 PM ET<\/p>\n
BERKSHIRE, England — Padraig Harrington birdied the final hole Saturday for another 5-under 65 for a two-shot lead over Justin Leonard going into the final round of the Senior British Open as the Irishman goes for his second senior major of the year.<\/p>\n
Harrington was among four players who had at least a share of the lead at some point during the round on the Old Course at Sunningdale. He seized the lead with birdies on the 13th and 14th hole, and a closing birdie added to his slight lead.<\/p>\n
Harrington was at 13-under 197. He has been in the United Kingdom the last three weeks for links golf, starting with the Scottish Open. He won the U.S. Senior Open in Colorado a month ago.<\/p>\n
Leonard, the only PGA Tour Champions player to make the cut last week in the British Open at Royal Portrush, also had a second straight 65.<\/p>\n
Thomas Bjorn had a 67 and was three shots behind.<\/p>\n
Harrington and Leonard are past British Open champions — Leonard at Royal Troon in 1997, Harrington winning the first of two claret jugs a decade later at Carnoustie (2007) and Royal Birkdale (2008). Either one can become the fifth player to win the British Open and Senior British Open, a feat last accomplished by Darren Clarke in 2022.<\/p>\n
Steven Alker, a two-time Charles Schwab Cup winner who opened with a 73, tried to get back in the game. He shot 66 and was among four players at 8-under 202, five shots behind.<\/p>\n
The winner is exempt for the 154th British Open next year at Royal Birkdale.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Jul 26, 2025, 02:28 PM ET BERKSHIRE, England — Padraig Harrington birdied the final hole Saturday for another…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":24615,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[566],"tags":[64,63,755,85],"class_list":["post-24614","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-golf","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-golf","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24614","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=24614"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24614\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/24615"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=24614"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=24614"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=24614"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}