Harrington digs deep to finish in ninth place

Padraig Harrington's closing 71 for an eight under total of 280 and a share of ninth place under sells his final round of the Zurich Classic of New Orleans, a tournament won after a play-off by first-time winner Tim Petrovic. John O'Sullivan reports

The Irishman started Sunday's final 18 holes on seven under and with an outside chance of catching several players including Arjun Atwal, Chris DiMarco, eventual winner Petrovic and the man he beat in a play-off James Driscoll. However, by the time Harrington had walked from the 15th green he was two over for the round (three bogeys and just a single birdie) and had slipped down the leaderboard.

The Dubliner is nothing if not a competitor and in recording successive birdies at the 16th, 17th, and 18th he climbed into a share of ninth place that earned him a cheque for $137,500, taking his earnings this season on the US PGA Tour to $1,242,126 from just six events. It represented his second top-10 finish - he won the Honda Classic - and his third time in the top 25 in just six tournaments in the US.

Harrington moves up four places to 15th in the US Tour money list but drops one place to eighth in the official world rankings.

DiMarco's third-place finish at New Orleans means he moves up to seventh. The New Yorker, appearing for the first time since the Masters, three putted the 18th to miss out on the play-off. He was possibly still traumatised by the image of a smiling Tiger Woods on a poster behind the 17th green advertising a certain make of car.

Harrington will travel to Quail Hollow Golf Club in North Carolina this week for the Wachovia Championship, where Joey Sindelar defends the title he won last year in a play-off. The Irishman will then return to Europe, where amongst other tournaments he'll play the Nissan Irish Open at Carton House.

Woods returns to competitive action for the first time since winning his fourth green jacket at Augusta. He finished third at this tournament last year.

The 38-year-old Petrovic, the US PGA Tour's latest first-time winner is also due to tee it up in North Carolina. It'd be understandable if his success at the weekend leaves him less than focused. That victory gives him what amounts to a two-and-a-half year exemption and with the winner's cheque of $990,000 decent financial security in a season that has seen him miss six cuts. It's 12 years since Petrovic went broke and gave up golf to go to work making and delivering pizzas.

He spent five years as a kitchen manager at a pizza restaurant in Tampa, Florida, and obviously now manages to bring a new connotation to the words rolling and dough. He admitted: "This feels like my first win since never. Perseverance is my word. That last putt seemed to take about 12 minutes to fall in. I saw every dimple rolling over, and over, and over and then it went in."

Four players disputed the title over the back nine at the TPC of Louisiana - Petrovic, DiMarco, Lucas Glover and Driscoll. The latter missed a four-foot putt on the last to claim the title and then three stabbed the same hole in the play-off to miss out.

Darren Clarke has chosen to sit out a second week and will be joined on the sidelines by Paul McGinley who missed the cut in China last week, and Peter Lawrie who shot a disappointing 78 in the final round for a share of 31st place when a top-10 finish looked likely. However, there will be plenty of Irish interest as the European Tour returns to mainland Europe with Graeme McDowell set to defend the Italian Open he won last year.

Gary Murphy, Damien McGrane, Stephen Browne, Michael Hoey and Philip Walton will join him at the Castello di Tolcinasco course.

David Higgins continues to lead the European Challenge Tour money list following his seventh-place finish in the Peugeot Open at El Prat GC. The Kerryman won €3,220 to take his season's earnings to €63,359.98 almost €11,000 ahead of Argentina's Rafael Gomez. Hoey (9th overall) finished in a tie for 20th with Colm Moriarty (56th) tied 33rd.