'It never gets old' - Pádraig Harrington sums up the drama of the cut

Never let anyone say the fight to make the cut doesn’t matter.

Pádraig Harrington, who was inducted into the World Golf Hall of Fame earlier this year, might have won three Major Championships among 21 worldwide wins but the drive inside him still burns bright.

Needing a birdie down the last to make the projected cut mark of two under, the 53-year-old Irishman delivered under pressure to ensure he made the weekend at the BMW PGA Championship for the 14th time - and the first since 2020.

“You’d think at my stage [of my career] I wouldn’t care about it, but in professional golf we really care about making the cut,” Harrington told the DP World Tour.

“It doesn’t make a difference to your career… but we kind of build momentum with this so when we make a cut, we get to play the weekend.

“You play Saturday morning, probably Sunday morning [and] conditions are a little easier. You shoot a good score, you move up the leaderboard and you feel good about the game.

“It’s a huge moment in the week, coming done to that cut line. You never get used to it, never get comfortable with it."

After a 75-minute delay due to thunder and lightning on Friday, several groups were forced to resume their second rounds on Saturday and there was cutline drama to unfold as Alejandro del Rey birdied the par-five 18th to send 17 people awaiting their fate on one under home.

While he was on the right side of the line this time, Harrington summed up the peril the cut provides in the game.

"It is always devastating when you are on the wrong side of it, and it never gets old," he added. "Players might get old, but it doesn’t get old.”