COLORADO SPRINGS, Colo. — Padraig Harrington and Stewart Cink endured the ups and downs of the U.S. Senior Open together for a second straight day Friday and found themselves tied for the lead.

The payoff — sharing the final tee time to kick off the weekend at the hilly, hard-to-read Broadmoor.

Cink made up five shots over the final nine holes of his head-to-head pairing against Harrington, and the players headed into the weekend tied at 6-under 134, along with late-charging Mark Hensby.

Cink shot 31 on the front nine, their second nine, to match Harrington’s score on the back.

Both players — the only two who average more than 300 yards driving on the 50-and-over PGA Tour Champions — called it a comfortable pairing, especially on a hilly course at altitude where gauging distance is anything but routine.

“If anything, he’d be a little bit longer than me,” Harrington said. “But I suppose I know his game enough that I can see what’s happening, as well. He is definitely a partner I would choose to play with.”

Hensby shot his second straight round of 3-under 67, finishing the day with his 14th and 15th birdies of the tournament. That included a 20-footer on No. 8 that would have been from closer had his tee shot not hit Doug Barron’s ball on the green. Hensby was 9-under par on the front nine and 3 over on the back after two days.

Padraig Harrington eats an apple while lining up a putt on the 10th hole on the first day at the U.S. Senior Open Championship at Broadmoor Golf Club in Colorado Springs, Colo., Thursday, June 26, 2025. Credit: AP

“Making a lot of birdies, so that’s a good thing around here,” he said.

Three behind was Thomas Bjorn (69), followed by Y.E. Yang (68) and Billy Andrade (69) at 2 under.

At 1 under, Darren Clarke, Steve Flesch and Miguel Angel Jimenez — whose round included an approach on 18 from closer to the driving range than the fairway and a double hit from the rough on No. 2 (no penalty for that) — rounded out the list of nine players heading into the weekend under par.

Cink hit all 18 greens in regulation, making it 35 of 36 for the week. He called that stat overrated, especially at a course where the real test starts on the notoriously difficult-to-read greens that cant away from a monument lurking above the course on Cheyenne Mountain.

Stewart Cink reacts after sinking a birdie on the 17th hole on the first day at the U.S. Senior Open Championship at Broadmoor Golf Club in Colorado Springs, Colo., Thursday, June 26, 2025. Credit: AP

“You don’t want to be chipping downhill on this course, it’s not a secret,” said the 52-year-old Cink, the 2009 British Open champion who is playing in his first U.S. Senior Open.

Cink two-putted from 45 feet on No. 9 for his fifth birdie on the front and a score of 66 — the best of the tournament so far.

After Harrington shot 31 on the more difficult back nine, then kept the lead at five with a birdie on the par-5 third, he was thinking there might be an opportunity to open a big lead heading into the weekend.

A pair of three-putts — one on the seventh and the other on the par-3 fourth green that has been slowed down to temper the severe slope — resulted in bogeys.

“I was hoping I’d make more of it,” Harrington said. “Nothing is guaranteed.”

But it ended well for the three-time major champion, whose wins came at the 2007 British Open and the ’08 British and PGA Championship. Short-sided in a greenside bunker on No. 9, Harrington made a 20-footer along the same line Cink had just putted for a birdie to head into the clubhouse in a tie.

“I got a lovely read off Stewart. I don’t think I would have given it as much break, so that was nice,” said Harrington, who won the U.S. Senior Open in 2022. “They’re the breaks you get when things are going well.”

Among those missing the cut were 12-time senior major champion Bernhard Langer, who shot 77, and Angel Cabrera, a two-time major winner this year, who shot 75; both missed the number by three.

David Toms, the champion the last time the Senior Open came to the Broadmoor in 2018, hit an approach to three feet on 18 for birdie to make the cut on the number.

“Well, professional golf has always been about playing on the weekend, and you just never know what can happen,” Toms said.

But the headliners Saturday are Harrington and Cink, whose biggest meetings before this weekend may have been in one Ryder Cup foursomes match in 2002 and another fourball contest in 2004. (Cink won both times.)

“I love watching him play. I would hope that he probably feels similarly about me,” Cink said. “We have mutual respect for each other. He’s a world-class player and he’s been doing it a long time. I would love it if we could go the distance here.”

COLORADO SPRINGS, Colo. — After leaving one chip in the rough and losing a bit of trust on the greens, Padraig Harrington was looking for something to give him hope heading into what figures to be a tumultuous final day at the topsy, turvy Broadmoor.

A chip-in from 20 yards for birdie on No. 18 did the trick. It gave Harrington a share of the lead, a spot in the final group and left him one more good round away from winning the U.S. Senior Open for the second time in four years.

Harrington’s chip-in Saturday pulled him into a tie with Stewart Cink and Mark Hensby, same as he was heading into the day. Playing in the same threesome, all three shot 2-under 68 to finish at 8-under 202. Only one walked away with that extra pep in his step that comes from making a shot like that.

“It was special to hole out on the 18th, with everybody watching, the anticipation,” Harrington said. “It was very exciting and very nice that I didn’t have to hit another shot.”

One shot behind was Thomas Bjorn, whose 66 matched the best round of the day and set up what appears to be a four-man fight for the title.

Steve Flesch (67) was another three shots back at 4 under and Steven Alker’s 66 left him at 3 under, tied with Miguel Angel Jimenez (68) and Paul Stankowski (67).

One more shot back was Billy Andrade (70), he of the ailing back who collapsed in agony after his approach on No. 17, yet somehow still made par there. It was fitting picture given all the pain and confusion the heavily tilted Broadmoor causes, especially when it’s set up for major-championship conditions.

Padraig Harrington hits from the first tee during the third round of the U.S. Senior Open Championship golf tournament at The Broadmoor, Saturday, June 28, 2025, in Colorado Springs, Colo. Credit: AP

“It’s what you do on those last four or five holes that are fairly tough and ask some big questions,” Bjorn said. “I’m quite sure the pin position tomorrow is going to have more questions for us. That’s where you win the golf tournament.”

Hensby’s worst taste of the greens came on 18. With the gallery still buzzing from Harrington’s hole-out, the Australian, whose 54th birthday is Sunday, left a 6-foot birdie for the solo lead short. It curled hard to the right without reaching the hole.

Even so, Hensby made four more birdies (along with an eagle) to finish Day 3 with 19 for the tournament. Cink, by comparison, has 13. Hensby can take comfort that he, more than anyone, has figured out how to hit from long range on greens that Justin Leonard said are “right on par with trying to putt at Augusta National.”

“You can have a 5-footer that can break 2 feet,” Hensby said. “People go, ‘Ahh,’ when you miss a 4-footer even though you’re aiming at a cup outside left edge and hoping. But it was fun.”

Thomas Bjorn putts the ball on the fourth hole on tthe second day of the U.S. Senior Open Championship at Broadmoor Golf Club, Friday, June 27, 2025, in Colorado Springs, Colo. Credit: AP

No single putt illustrated this more than Cink’s on the par-3 16th. Ffrom just off the green, his birdie attempt curled past the hole and some 30 feet from the flag as the ever-present slope of Cheyenne Mountain took its toll.

Still, he wasn’t complaining after a four-birdie, two-bogey round on a day filled with sun, clouds, wind, rain and even a flash of lightning that pulled the players off the course for a half-hour.

And the 6,000 feet of altitude.

“We hit some shots out there that we really didn’t know what to expect when the ball was in the air,” Cink said. “There was one where on a par-3, on the 12th hole, it was a 228-yard shot, and I hit an 8-iron. How do you figure that kind of stuff?”

Cink and Hensby looked like they’d finish tied by themselves for the lead they had shared with Harrington before the Irishman started losing momentum on the back nine.

The three-time major champion needed two chips from the deep rough on the par-3 12th and made double bogey to fall out of the lead. Another bogey came on 15 when he babied a 5-foot par putt and it curled away well before the hole.

“I certainly lost a bit of trust on the green,” Harrington said.

He set up the fabulous finish by yanking his tee shot on 18 into the rough left of the fairway, giving him no choice but to hack out over the lake and short of the green.

But he turned a possible bogey into an unlikely birdie and guaranteed himself a spot in the final group Sunday, where he’ll play in the same threesome (due to weather) as he did Saturday. It also will mark his fourth straight day of going head-to-head with Cink.

“I did want to be in the last group, yes, and the only way I could be in the last group was making that birdie,” Harrington said. “But just because you want something doesn’t mean you can. If it was as easy as that, we’d be all great.”

COLORADO SPRINGS, Colo. — A video of Padraig Harrington arguing with NBC on-course reporter Roger Maltbie for not helping him look for a lost ball during his opening round is generating buzz at the U.S. Senior Open.

“Never on a golf course stand and look at somebody looking for a golf ball,” Harrington is seen telling Maltbie on video captured by a local TV reporter outside the scoring area. “You’ve played golf all your life. You understand.”

The argument stemmed from Thursday’s round, when Harrington teed off into a thicket of trees on the 15th hole. After about a dozen people unsuccessfully searched for the allowed three minutes, Harrington went back to the tee box for his third shot. He ended up saving bogey, and went into the weekend tied for the lead.

Maltbie, the longtime on-course reporter who played on the PGA Tour in the 1970s and ’80s, was in the area. He told Golf.com on Saturday he was being asked to report on the scenario and couldn’t step away from his job to help in the search.

A day after the episode, Harrington and Maltbie aired out their differences near the scoring area.

Maltbie can be heard telling Harrington, “So I should have disobeyed my producer?”

In the interview with Golf.com, he said: “I was very close to saying, ’All these years, all these checks I’ve gotten from NBC, your name isn’t on any of them.”