Brian Harman couldn’t let time pass fast enough for those around him on Sunday afternoon at Royal Liverpool as he wrapped up the 151st Open Championship and the first major tournament of his career. by six strokes in the match against world number 3 Jon Rahm, Jason Day, Tom Kim and Sepp Straka. When you start the most important round of your life with a five-shot advantage, all anyone cheering for you wants to see is the holes marked by your score stay the same.
But over four hours in heavy rain with nearly every European star in the chase game enjoyingably – that moves slower than one might expect. And for those in Harman’s camp, after the left-handed player played the first four holes in 1 and saw his lead begin to slip, time seemed to stand still at the 5th tee as he darted left and into a gorse bush.
However, like he had all week, Harman calmly played the rest of the hole. He scored a bogey but made a birdie recovery in 6th and 7th to effectively put a tool in Claret Jug’s engraver’s hand. That lifted his lead to five, which is where it was when he turned. Nine defenders is a big march “just don’t hit the ball out of bounds” to reach the biggest title of his career. Harman scored a bogey on the 13th but was soon followed by consecutive birdies to get through to the bottom 1 and win by a margin.
As far as major championship performances go, it’s one of those eras. It also comes from an uncertain source.
Joining Royal Liverpool, Harman has only broken into the top 10 twice in 29 appearances (though once came last year at this tournament in St. Andrews). Does he enter as a candidate and possible winner? A little bit. He is ranked 26th in the Official World Golf Ranking but was listed by Caesars Sportsbook at 175-1 on the odds table ahead of Thursday’s first round.
Does he appear as someone who looks set to beat world No. 1 Scottie Scheffler by 13 strokes while on a winning streak against the likes of Rahm and Rory McIlroy?
There are two ways to see how Harman won this Open. On Thursday and Friday, he created a cross-eyed lead (Brian Harman rose five?! … at the halfway point?!). This allows him some breathing space during the weekend. He still had to (and did) hit the golf swing. But he doesn’t have to combine wacky golf swings with making tough decisions like many others do. He is capable enough to play away from risky shots and rely on his hitter. That is the advantage of plowing the field at the beginning of the week.
the boy did him tilt on that putter. That’s another way he won this tournament. Without it, the lead probably wouldn’t be as big. Perhaps he feels he has to take on more adventurous routes. Maybe he’s in more trouble on weekends.
The numbers are ridiculous. He made 14 of 15 shots from 10 feet and 6 of 29 shots outside of 20 feet. Both stats are funny. Both contributed to leading the tournament in terms of strokes won. They both won him a Claret Jug with his 106 placings for the week, the least for an Open winner in the past two decades.
It’s been a stellar year in the career for Harman, who won the PGA Tour for the first time since 2017. In addition to this Open win, he will almost certainly be on his first Ryder Cup team in September when the United States travels to Rome in search of its first transatlantic victory since Harman was six years old.
Harman, who has played in two Walker Cups as an amateur, said: “For me, being on the Ryder Cup team means as much as the world. “I think I’ll do very well.”
Don’t let your lack of wins or Ryder Cup appearances fool you. In terms of the level of golfers outside of the sport’s stars and superstars, Harman is almost at the top. Here is a list of his achievements:
- $31 million in career earnings (including this Open)
- 51 finishes top 10 of 340 PGA Tour starts
- 3 career wins (John Deere, Wells Fargo, Open)
- 12 times in a row into the FedEx Cup Playoffs
- 235 out of 340 cuts made on PGA Tour
Harman has been a stellar player on the world’s best tour for a long time. So while this explosive major may seem a bit random — and perhaps it is in some ways — sometimes the four greatest days of one’s golf life fit into the four most important weeks in the game.
As Rahm pointed out on Saturday after scoring a record 63 in the third round, it’s unusual in golf that things turn out the way one envisions it. But sometimes, it actually happens.
Sometimes, participating in an important event with little expected burden is a competitive advantage, especially when facing a field full of stars that everyone has predicted will win that tournament. Everyone in the camp then chases after a man who emerges from the camp before the week has passed.
Don’t confuse a lack of expectations with a lack of competitiveness. You can’t recover from the initial setbacks like Harman did on both Saturday and Sunday unless you’re a fierce competitor.
There is a great story about Harman in “To Kill a Tiger” by Shane Ryan it was passed this week about how Harman once brutally beat Rickie Fowler at a college event that made Fowler burst into tears.
Harman won the Claret Jug because he’s an excellent professional golfer and a stubborn opponent in a game sometimes without them, but what impressed me about his week is that he’s an outstanding professional golfer because he loves professional golf.
There are two types of professional athletes. People who play because they are good and people who are good because they play. Sometimes, as is the case with golfers like McIlroy, Rahm, Scheffler and Jordan Spieth, you get a rare combination of the two.
Harman falls into the second category. He’s great because he loves nothing more than playing, practicing and trying to be even greater.
“Someone once told me you should do things that take your time, and for me, a lot of times when I’m practicing batting or putting at home, I lose time,” Harman said Saturday. “That’s how I know that I really enjoy it. For me, it’s just an interesting profession that I have.”
There is a beautiful simplicity in this, when you are so immersed in your mastery of the craft that it pushes back time on its own.
While the company’s small billboards displaying two hands and 12 numbers around the Open Championship venues must have felt uncomfortably slow for the caddy and his team, the Golfer of the Year Champion continued his process and made one arrow after another in the tournament.
In Harman’s small world, four hours to get his hands on the biggest win of his career can feel like no time at all.
Rick Gehman joins Kyle Porter, Patrick McDonald and Greg DuCharme to break down Brian Harman’s dominant win at the 151st Open Championship. That’s the plot, betting summary and One & Done. Follow and listen to The First Cut on Apple Podcasts And Spotify.
