BY SCOTT MICHAUX
Brian Harman was never in danger of becoming a verb regardless of how this Open Championship concluded. Jean Van de Velde and Greg Norman already have the bases covered for major meltdowns, whether all of a sudden or slow and excruciating.
It would have taken a Van de Veldian collapse of Normanesque proportions for Harman not to close the deal on his major maiden at Royal Liverpool.
Since Friday, the cocksure 36-year-old lefty from Savannah, Georgia, slept on five-shot leads. The largest 54-hole leads ever lost at the Open were five strokes by Van de Velde notoriously in 1999 at Carnoustie and Macdonald Smith in 1925 at Prestwick.
Hoylake has been a frontrunner’s course. In 12 previous Opens played at Royal Liverpool, eight players with at least a share of the 54-hole lead have won, including all five since World War II.
You have to go back to Alf Padgham in 1936 to find a player who had to rally from behind in the final round to win at Royal Liverpool. Padgham was tied for third, a shot behind co-leaders Henry Cotton and Jimmy Adams after the first 18 of a 36-hole final Saturday. He shot what was then a 3-under 71 at Hoylake to clip Adams by one.
Bobby Jones, too, had to rally from a shot back to keep his Grand Slam season alive in 1930. Arnaud Massy of France had to surge past J.H. Taylor in 1907. In the inaugural Open at Royal Liverpool in 1897, Harold Hilton slipped past James Braid.
So Harman had history on his side, but as we all know history isn’t so easily attained. Credit to the Bulldog from Georgia for deftly getting it done.
BIRDIE: Harman. We often forget when players take too long to fulfill their pedigree, but Harman was a U.S. Junior champion and two-time Walker Cupper who was once considered the next great thing. Not blessed with size and length, Harman needed a while for his grit to start making noise on major stages, starting with the 54-hole lead at Erin Hills in 2017. He’s a testament to old-school skills and determination.
BOUNCEBACK BIRDIE: Jon Rahm. For two days the Spaniard resembled the brooding menace who has angrily stalked most major fairways since winning the Masters in April. Then a Saturday course-record 63 brought back Rahmbo, the dominant force who Luke Donald hopes headlines his team in Italy without needing to bite the head off the nearest human who impedes his pace inside the ropes.
BIRDIE: Sepp Straka and Adrian Otaegui. Your European captain sees you. Straka, the Austrian Georgia Bulldog whom the first-tee announcer identified as Australian, quietly has become excellent. And Spain’s vowel monger paid his DP World fines and served his time for last year’s dalliance with LIV. Other than a nightmare OB encounter on No. 4 Saturday, he played well, Their contending efforts at Hoylake warrant Rome consideration.
TRIPLE: Tommy Fleetwood. Perfect form and a brilliant start had the Englishman from up the street in Southport in prime position finally to break through. But he treaded water for the next three days until a brutal triple on the short 17th spoiled what could have been another major runner-up.
BIRDIE: Cameron Young. Last year’s Open runner-up has been quiet this season until he vaulted right back into contention with a Saturday 66 to earn the final pairing. It was a timely re-emergence with a Ryder Cup spot in play.
BIRDIE: Siblings. Brothers have been part of Open history since nearly the beginning. Harry and Tom Vardon finished 1-2 at Prestwick in 1903. But two pairs of siblings in one Open happened only once before, in 1985 when Seve and Manuel Ballesteros joined Tateo “Jet” and Naomichi “Joe” Osaki at Royal St. George’s. Last week, England’s Matt and Alex Fitzpatrick and Danish twins Nicolai and Rasmus Højgaard not only teed it up, but all except Rasmus were inside the top 20 heading into Sunday.
BOGEY: World Nos. 1 and 2. We know they don’t want to talk about it, but if Scottie Scheffler and Rory McIlroy could consistently putt, they might never lose a major. So much of the natural brilliance they display across most of the 7,000-plus yards of a course is dulled in the final 8 feet to the cup.
BIRDIE: Christo Lamprecht. The 6-foot-8 South African amateur thrived and dived with his unapologetically bold and brash power game. The committed Georgia Tech returnee flashed his style sharing the first-round lead at 66, then nearly flamed out with a second-round 79 to make the cut on the number. “Hitting it as hard as I can and smashing it 400 yards is fun and cool,” Lampracht said, staying true to his damn-the-torpedos-full-speed-ahead game.
PAR: Ernie Els. The twice Open champ had something to say about the “shambles” agreement between the tours and the Saudis’ “circus golf” before missing the cut. “If this happened in my day, in my prime, there’s no way he’s around,” Els said of PGA Tour commish Jay Monahan. “And the board has to change. You do sh– like this; I’m sorry, it’s not right. Talk to us, tell us what you’re going to do … don’t just go rogue as a member of the board and come back with a deal and think we’re all going to say yes. You’re affecting people’s lives. You’re affecting the professional game. It’s just so bad.”
QUAD: Tyrrell Hatton. The Englishman would have been tied for fourth through 54 holes if not for two tee balls hit into the internal OB on 18 Friday that led to a closing 9 and another classic Hatton reaction as he fixed his putter like a rifle and shot three times back down the hole that doomed his hopes.
OB: Internal OB. Already the worst rule in golf, designating areas within the confines of a course’s property as outside the playing boundaries of competition is an abomination.
PAR: Little Eye. The new short par-3 17th hole was a bit of a controversial redesign with its small green that falls off steeply on all sides. But at only 140 yards, it offers an interesting challenge – especially in the wind off the Irish Sea. Koepka put it best: “I think all the best par-3s in the world that have ever been designed are 165 yards or shorter – 12th at Augusta, Sawgrass. I mean, Postage Stamp. There’s a bunch of them, and you can walk away with 5 just as easy as you could 2. I like it.”
BIRDIE: Matthew Jordan. The homegrown Royal Liverpudlian was understandably nervous in hitting the first tee shot at 6:35 a.m. Thursday under grandstands already packed with fans hailing one of their own. Jordan made the Open’s first birdie and stood atop the leaderboard through nine holes as he tried valiantly to join Harold Hilton as Hoylake members to win on home ground. Hilton won the second of his Opens in the first staging at Royal Liverpool in 1897.
BOGEY: Justin Thomas. Is it possible for a wildly inconsistent two-time major winner sliding in the top 20 to play his way off the Ryder Cup team? Asking for Collin Morikawa. Thomas seems to have caught whatever slump-transmitted disease his spring break buddies Jordan Spieth and Rickie Fowler recently overcame. Thomas’ performances on the five biggest stages this season have been gruesome, including his departing 81 at the U.S. Open and opening 82 at Hoylake.
BOGEY: J. Lindeberg. The daring fashion brand exceeded its own worst standard set when it once sent Charles Howell III out in his hometown Augusta major wearing what looked like Masters marching band trousers (white with a green stripe down the legs). Poor Viktor Hovland and Matt Wallace wore tops they won’t soon live down. Tweeted Trevor Immelman: “Hovland looks like a jockey in that outfit.”
BIRDIE: Tom Kim. Nice to see the breakout star of 2022 from South Korea make a spirited Sunday charge into a share of runner-up. On the heels of his T8 in the U.S. Open, he seems ready to take the next step next major season.
BOGEY: Bunkers. The pits of doom scattered across Hoylake proved so overly penal in the first round, with balls consistently settling at the base of the vertical revetted walls that the R&A (citing drier-than-expected conditions) had to issue an overnight order that the flat bottoms it created would be altered with sand raked up one revet around the edges to allow balls to roll away from the faces. Matthew Jordan, a Royal Liverpool member, said the bunkers were entirely out of character of the course’s norms. “I haven’t seen the bunkers like this at all,” he said. “I don’t know who’s annoyed the greenkeeper, but … they’re just so flat and they’re so penal.” Imagine how annoyed the greenkeeper was after his staff had to overnight alter 81 bunker bottoms underneath slogans that read “Forged by Nature.”
BOGEY: Lee Westwood and Ian Poulter. The aging English LIV defectors not even attempting to qualify for the Open in their home country was lame. Their excuses of “scheduling conflicts” with the 36-hole final qualifying conveniently tucked between two nearby 54-hole LIV events in Spain and London were even lamer. Credit Laurie Canter as the only Majesticks Brit to qualify his way in.
BOGEY: Dustin Johnson. His missed cut all but ensures Mr. 5-0 at Whistling Straits won’t reprise his role in Rome. His T10 at the U.S. Open just isn’t enough. Brooks Koepka is the lone LIV player worthy of a spot on Zach Johnson’s team at this point.
BIRDIE: Yellow bags. TaylorMade’s special Open-themed bags were hard to miss. Bright scoreboard yellow, they included details such as the scores from Tiger Woods’ and Rory McIlroy’s Hoylake wins, references to the rival Merseyside Derby soccer clubs and a bottom blue ring hailing Cranleigh and Charterhouse, rival boarding schools whose students man the opposing manual scoreboards on each side of every Open’s 18th fairway.
PAR: African Amateur. In announcing a new 72-hole stroke-play competition comparable to the Asia-Pacific and Latin America Ams for 72 elite male amateurs from that continent to be held in South Africa next February, the R&A also announced (very faintly) an elite competition for women. But for 20 contestants. Why the discrepancy? Because the R&A does not think there are enough elite female golfers in Africa to justify a comparable field.
BIRDIE: Insomniacs. The 50-plus hours of live broadcast coverage across Peacock, USA Network and NBC from the wee hours of the morning through late afternoons is the stuff of dreams for those of us so inclined to stay up all night to get our links golf fix. Though we didn’t stay up all night to see incessant commercials. However, we were rewarded with Nick Faldo coming out of retirement to opine next to Mike Tirico in the morning, which made all those Morikawa bank commercials more tolerable.
BIRDIE: Hoylake hospitality. GGP’s John Hopkins has covered nearly 50 Opens, and he reckons that this year’s might be the most friendly. “Mornin’, darlin’” was the usual greeting from a female security official scanning laptop bags at entrance. “Have a good day, sweetheart.” As he left the course late at night there came a “night, night, lovely.”