No small feat: Padraig Harrington wins Simmons Bank Championship, has shot at Charles Schwab Cup

There were abundant possibilities and exciting scenarios sprinkled across the final day of the inaugural Simmons Bank Championship on Sunday at Pleasant Valley Country Club in Little Rock, Arkansas, as men’s professional golf made its return to Arkansas this week after an absence of more than a decade. The crowds for the game's return to a golf-starved state were large, and there was one thing that Sunday onlookers could count on: After close calls in each of his last two PGA TOUR Champions starts, Irishman Padraig Harrington, a proven closer, was determined that victory would not elude him. It did not, as he held off several late challengers to win the second leg of the 2024 Charles Schwab Cup Playoffs.

With a two-putt birdie at Pleasant Valley’s 531-yard 18th hole, which he reached with a "three-quarter" 5-iron from 213 yards after a massive drive, Harrington shot a closing 5-under 67 that propelled him to 17-under 199 for three rounds, two shots clear of fellow former major winner Y.E. Yang, who made 10 birdies and shot 65 on Sunday. The Simmons Bank win marked the ninth career PGA TOUR Champions victory for Harrington, 53, and his third Champions triumph of 2024 (tying Ernie Els and Stephen Ames).

Harrington now has won a Charles Schwab Cup Playoffs event in four consecutive seasons, and with double points on avail Sunday, he jumped to fourth (from 11th) in the season-long Charles Schwab Cup standings as 36 players ready for the Charles Schwab Cup Championship in two weeks at Phoenix Country Club in Arizona. Winning in Little Rock gives Harrington a chance to catch front-runner Els, his fellow World Golf Hall of Fame member, in Arizona.

The Charles Schwab Cup Championship field also will include Jason Caron, a full-time PGA club professional from Oyster Bay, New York, who secured the 35th spot (of 36) for Phoenix with a tie for third (alongside U.S. Senior Open runner-up Hiroyuki Fujita) after shooting 68 Sunday. It was Caron’s fourth top-10 finish in nine starts as a part-time player on tour this season, a run that began with his T4 finish at the KitchenAid PGA Senior Championship in Michigan in May.

“Ridiculous,” was Caron’s one-word response to learning he had qualified for the Champions’ season finale in Arizona. (Australia's Rod Pampling held on to the 36th spot with birdies at his final two holes; his fellow Aussie, PGA TOUR Champions rookie Cameron Percy, would be the odd man out, at No. 37.)

Caron, 52, briefly played the PGA TOUR in an earlier life before accepting a job as head golf professional at Mill River Country Club on Long Island, where his wife, Liz (nee Janangelo, a former standout at Duke), also teaches. Caron said golf no longer is his life’s priority – he considers his two young daughters his top priority – and he is taking a wait-and-see approach to what 2025 holds as far as playing opportunities. The good news? He’ll have plenty.

“Yeah, this just puts us in a better spot, obviously,” Caron said. He started his week in Arkansas ranked 53rd in the points standings, and Sunday, he birdied three of his final six holes to climb into the top 36. “We’ll see what next year looks like, to be honest. It should be a lot of fun again. Hopefully, the kids (Caroline and Julia) will be able to come out (on tour) more than just once a year.”

Harrington as a youth had his eye on a life as a career amateur golfer, but the once-aspiring accountant was beating enough pros that he decided to give the professional game a go. As he said late Sunday, it has been a decision that “turned out OK.”

Sunday, starting out tied for the lead, Harrington made birdies on four of his first eight holes, nearly acing the par-3 second hole, and then played smartly from there, never giving up the lead though several players tried to apply pressure on him. Yang shot 65 despite making double bogey at the par-4 16th; Yang was busily making birdies; Caron went in front for a spell early in the round; and Stewart Cink made an early run with four front-nine birdies. One by one, the challengers fell back. Harrington knew he needed to win to have any sort of chance in the Schwab finale, and to pull it off the way he did gave him great satisfaction. Harrington’s first half of the year was not to his liking, as he was slowed, and lacked strength, after a bout with pneumonia.

“I'm getting a bit older, so I am aware that, you know, it's not going to get easier to win the (Charles) Schwab Cup,” Harrington said. “There's more players coming on, new players. Yeah, if I have a chance, I'll certainly be anxious to take my chance.”

He made a great up and down to save par at the short 15th, where a tugged drive left him in a bad spot off the tee, and made some beautiful swings coming in. That’s what he loves so much about the game. Nothing ever is given. Harrington knew in order to win, he had to hit good shots coming home, and hole the putts, and one by one, he executed those needed shots. The round culminated with two of his better strikes on the final hole.

Els rode a hot finish on Sunday (65, tying the day's low round) to protect his points lead heading to Phoenix, and will begin the finale with the same cushion over No. 2 Steven Alker in points (132,032) that he carried into Little Rock. Alker, who’d opened on Friday by shooting 10-under 62, shot 73 Sunday and was level par on the weekend in Arkansas. Alker still is chasing victory No. 2 this season after capturing the season opener in Hawaii in January.

In the end, Harrington was his usual steady self, and that proved plenty enough to finish the job. He still has enough game to compete against the younger stars of golf, which he still likes to do, but Harrington has found PGA TOUR Champions to be a great place to compete. In fact, he called it “brilliant” on Sunday, with yet another trophy in his possession.

“You're coming out here, you're playing with your peers, you're playing in front of great crowds, it gets exciting, you've got a great chance to get yourself in contention,” he said. “The whole of being in contention and trying to hit the shots under pressure, it's like you're back as a young lad, it's like you're back in the good old days. It is very much out here on the Champions Tour, you're reliving the past glories, you're hitting those shots and you feel like ... what other sport gives you that opportunity to feel like a star again?”

Harrington, a three-time major champion who was inducted into the Hall of Fame this summer in North Carolina, continues to relive his past glories, doing it in real-time. Which, of course, makes him a player to watch once again as the PGA TOUR Champions trundles toward one final week in Arizona, where a season-long champion will be crowned.

Brilliant, indeed.