After lost season, Padraig Harrington regains his touch with 64 for 2-shot lead at Bridgestone

Harrington finds an answer in opening 64

AKRON, Ohio — Padraig Harrington’s round hung in the balance like so many before it in what has been a lost year.

Instead of going wrong yet again, however, everything seemed to work out — just like when he won the British Open and PGA Championship in the span of three weeks a year ago. The result was a glittering 6-under 64 Thursday for a two-stroke lead over Scott Verplank, Tim Clark and Praya Marksaeng.

The turning point came when he was behind the green at the par-4 13th, needing to get up and down to avoid a bogey.

“At that stage, I suppose I’m still wondering which way it’s going to go,” Harrington said.

After a 40-foot chip, he saved par with a 5-foot putt. From there, he floated to the top of the leaderboard.

“That was important,” the Irishman said. “I felt like I was going forward from there, felt like I was looking to make birdies on every hole. If I hadn’t gotten that up-and-down, I might have gotten back in the track I’ve been on the last six months of being very defensive and very cautious.”

Steve Stricker, Ian Poulter and Zach Johnson were at 67 and Tiger Woods, who has won six times at Firestone Country Club, scrambled to a 68.

It’s hard to imagine how fragile Harrington’s game had become after his breakthrough last year when he charged from two shots back of Greg Norman at Royal Birkdale to win the Open by four strokes and then overcame a three-shot deficit to Ben Curtis heading into the last round of the PGA at Oakland Hills.

Harrington has virtually fallen off the competitive map since tinkering with his swing when he seemed to be atop the golf world. The numbers don’t lie: no top 10s in 14 starts on the PGA Tour, six missed cuts in 14 starts on the European Tour and winless in official events since raising the Wanamaker Trophy 51 weeks ago.

Harrington refused to say that he had turned a corner in the span of 4½ hours. Yet he had difficulty concealing how pleased he was to finally get off to a good start in a round — he birdied the first two holes — or in a tournament, for a change.

“It does have an effect,” he said. “I’ve seen many players start off, get a couple good breaks in the first couple of holes and play well for 72 holes. And vice versa. … It is important that you get some momentum early in the tournament and you get a couple of good things going for you.”

Verplank, playing in the same group with Harrington, didn’t have a bogey and skirted any problems he encountered. He said he just followed in Harrington’s wake.

“I know he’s struggled a little bit and he’s probably gotten too much criticism for working on his game, but he’s the only one who knows what he needs to do,” Verplank said. “If today is any indication, then he’s doing something right.”

Clark and Marksaeng each birdied their first two holes and overcame some rough spots for their 66s. Marksaeng got to 6 under before closing with two bogeys.

After completing his 67, Stricker said Firestone would provide the perfect preparation for next week’s PGA Championship at Hazeltine.

“This is a perfect warmup,” he said. “This a similar style to what we’re going to be playing next week, an old-style golf course with big trees and narrow fairways. So it’s a good test and a good tuneup.”

Woods admitted his round was streaky — a blend of drives pushed far to the right, recovery shots that saved him strokes and the occasional birdie putt.

“Kind of the way it’s been this year — although I’ve done all right,” said Woods, who has won four times this season. “Some of the things that I was working on on Monday and Tuesday at home, I put it together for a little bit in stretches today.”

Woods was joined at 68 by Sergio Garcia, Hunter Mahan, Robert Allenby, Miguel Angel Jimenez and Danny Lee.

British Open champ Stewart Cink, winner of the 2004 Bridgestone, shot a 69 to join a dozen others, including U.S. Open champion Lucas Glover.

Phil Mickelson rebounded from a poor start for a 70 in his first competitive round since the U.S. Open. He had taken six weeks off to stay at home while his wife and mother fought breast cancer.

It took time to get back in the groove.

“You get into playing a little bit and you realize that you can’t (be) swinging afraid or swinging tentative,” he said. “I started to trust my swing. I started to make more aggressive shots and ended up giving myself a few birdie chances and I made them.”

That’s exactly what Harrington did, too.