PADRAIG HARRINGTON’S nightmare run of missed cuts went to five in Paris – just as many as Tiger Woods has failed to make in his entire 13-year professional career.
With his Open hat-trick bid less than two weeks away, Harrington’s fate was effectively sealed when he drove out of bounds and ran up a triple-bogey eight at the 14th hole of his second round in the French Open Alstom at Le Golf National.
The Dubliner, who finished with a 75 for five over par, freely conceded on Wednesday that he was running out of time to get his game in good enough shape to triumph again at Turnberry.
Now he has only next week’s Irish PGA championship to find a bit of competitive confidence before heading to Scotland.
Harrington, who last played four rounds of an event at the Players Championship in Florida in early May, left a tournament which at the halfway stage sees Argentina’s Rafa Echenique – last week’s albatross man in Munich – take over at the top from German Martin Kaymer.
It was more his putting than his eight which troubled the three-time major winner.
‘‘I was never comfortable on the greens all week,’’ said Harrington, who felt his three-putt bogey at the 13th to drop to two over was the crucial mistake.
■ A one-over par 72 for Hartlepool’s Graeme Storm – he started with dropped shots on the first and second holes – left him one-under par in 32nd spot. Disappointing rounds of 74 and 79, however, saw Barnard Castle’s Rob Dinwiddie miss the cut.
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