Harrington misses the cut at PGA

Harrington’s Ryder Cup place is in doubt after his poor showing [AFP]

Former winner Padraig Harrington double-bogeyed the last hole to miss the cut by a stroke at the US PGA Championship and leave his Ryder Cup place in doubt.

The Irishman was three under for the second round and level overall heading to the par-four 18th at Whistling Straits but he dumped his second shot into a water hazard after being distracted by a photographer.

Having taken a penalty drop, he struck his fourth 10 feet past the pin and missed the bogey putt to wind up with a one-under-par 71 and a two-over total of 146.

“Obviously I don’t feel good about taking six down the last,” a subdued Harrington said on Saturday after completing his weather-delayed second round on a sun-splashed morning.

“I felt I had done all the hard work at that stage. Yesterday when I got it back to level par I was thinking about winning the tournament.”

Harrington, who won the PGA Championship at Oakland Hills in 2008, hit a perfect drive down the 18th fairway and planned to play conservatively with his approach.

“I couldn’t go for the flag and was going for the middle of the green,” the 38-year-old Dubliner said. “I just got distracted … and hit it fat. But the real issue for me is I should have been four or five under coming down the last.

“As much as it is very disappointing to double the last, I have hit the ball well enough to be in contention here.”

Harrington’s bid to compete in a sixth successive Ryder Cup is also up in the air as he does not plan to play in the last two qualifying events on the European Tour and will have to rely on a captain’s pick.

“At the end of the day, nobody who doesn’t qualify deserves automatically to be picked,” the Irishman said.

“My majors have been poor this year but everything else has been good.

“I have worked hard, tried hard and if I get picked I want to be ready to play. If it doesn’t happen, I will be disappointed but there is not more I could have done. It is just one of those things.”

Harrington was among several big names to exit the PGA Championship on Saturday where 72 players made the cut.

Also missing out were Britain’s US Open champion Graeme McDowell, British Open winner Louis Oosthuizen of South Africa, former major winners Geoff Ogilvy, Lucas Glover and Stewart Cink and South Korean Yang Yong-eun, who won last year’s PGA Championship at Hazeltine National.

Woods in contention

Tiger Woods birdied three of his last nine holes to survive the cut and remain in contention to win the last major of the year.

Woods shot a two-under-par 70 to reach the halfway stage at three-under.

That left him in a tie for 21st place, five strokes behind overnight leader Matt Kuchar and four behind second-placed Nick Watney.

JB Holmes (66) and Jim Furyk (68) leapfrogged their way up the congested leaderboard into a tie for third place at six under, one clear of a group of 10 players that included Northern Ireland’s Rory McIlroy and Fiji’s Vijay Singh (66), a former two-time winner who was playing in the same group as Woods.