Padraig Harrington's victory hopes met a watery doom for the second Sunday in a row, his bid for back-to-back titles at the PGA Championship undone by a quintuple-bogey on the par-3 eighth.

One week after Harrington chipped over a green on his way to a "snowman" 8 at the 16th hole and lost the World Golf Championships Bridgestone Invitational to top-ranked Tiger Woods, he saw his major chances sink again like a stone.

The three-time major champion opened with seven pars to stand only one off the lead of Woods and level second with eventual winner Yang Yong-Eun of South Korea when he reached the eighth hole at Hazeltine.

Harrington's tee shot found the water and his third hit playing partner Henrik Stenson of Sweden before settling into thick greenside rough.

"It was a difficult tee shot and a difficult second after you hit it in the water and pulled it left," Harrington said. "I had been changing my chipping action a little and I was probably more into what I was doing rather than trying to get the ball up and down."

The Irishman botched his chip and it rolled across the green and into the water hazard awaiting beyond.

"I hit a bad shot. These things happen," Harrington said.

Some days they don't come off. Some days they do."

Harrington holed a testy five-foot downhill putt for quintuple bogey but the damage was done.

"It's hard when you are messing up like that," Harrington said. "I made a great up and down from a bad lie. I finished the hole off strong and can't ask for any more than that."

He matched the second-worst score on any hole in his career and fell from second to a share of 12th, leaving Yang and Woods three shots clear of the field and in their own man-to-man fight until the finish.

"Obviously it was disappointing for me," Harrington said. "I was just trying to get up with it - really probably didn't settle in enough but in my mind I probably was and I did the classic amateur thing."

Harrington does see himself as better off for having been in contention the past two weeks after a season struggling with swing changes.

"The positive is I was very comfortable out there. I know my game is going to get better," Harrington said.