HOYLAKE, ENGLAND | Late on a damp afternoon at Royal Liverpool, when the skies were greyer than the face of a drunk and the clouds squatted so firmly and so low that you couldn’t even see the Welsh hills a few miles across the Dee Estuary, Brian Harman calmly and coolly navigated his way past the treacherous short 17th and down the long 18th to as convincing a victory in the Open Championship as there has been for a long time.
Harman, a 36-year-old American, made it seem matter of fact, though clearly it wasn’t.
On the 18th, after successfully getting out of one of the pesky revetted bunkers that were such a talking point at the 151st Open, Harman raised his cap to reveal a head that was some way short of being hirsute and gave a slow, slight smile. His love of hunting had made the British newspapers christen him the Butcher of Hoylake. He had finished 13-under par, and after winning by six strokes he could be said to have carved up every one of his opponents.
To have expected a man for whom a raised eyebrow is a gesture of considerable significance to do anything out of character at that point would have been unfair. Even his winner’s speech was true to form. As he spoke, he cast occasional glances at the Claret Jug, which he cradled fondly in his hands, and looked like the man from Accounts who had just been voted company personality of the year and given another parking space.
But underestimate Harman’s unobtrusiveness and calmness at your peril. He has something of Larry Nelson about him. At the 1981 Ryder Cup, Nelson, who won three major championships, was described as “my baby-faced chicken killer” by Dave Marr, the US captain. At the 2009 Walker Cup, the GB&I players called Harman a spitting bulldog (he does expectorate rather a lot), and the image of a fierce canine – the mascot of his alma mater, the University of Georgia Bulldogs – was intended as a mark of respect. Harman’s presence in the US team at the forthcoming Ryder Cup will be ominous for Europe.
Neat and tidy are words that don’t do Harman justice – not in his dress and manner and certainly not in his golf. He could be a little quicker over the ball. At the moment, he waggles his club more times than an excited dog wags its tail. He won’t be changing anything, now that he has won his first major championship and prize money of $3 million, which is more than twice as much as the three-time PGA Tour winner had ever won before.
It is possible that Harman had won the event not by teatime on Sunday but just before teatime on Saturday.
Left-handers tend to look comfortable over short shots, be they pitches, chips or putts. Even Phil Mickelson, long-legged and with a long, limber swing to match, is compact and tidy when playing a deft chip over a bunker. Harman is true to the styles of those who address from the ball on the other side. As for his putting and the way he strokes them in almost unerringly from 10 feet or less and lays them dead from longer distances, that was just otherworldly. Last week, he appeared to hole everything he looked at on the greens.
At the Players Championship in 2022, Cameron Smith had putted so well that we thought he was a putting savant. If only one person can hold the title of putting savant at any one time, then last week Harman took the mantle as a putting savant from Smith. “That’s kind of been my MO [modus operandi] throughout my career,” Harman said. “I have a really good short game, and I’m a good putter.”
On Saturday evening, when he held a lead of five strokes, Harman had taken 78 putts for 54 holes, fewer than any of his rivals. Cameron Young, who lay second by five strokes at that point, had taken 11 more putts in his first 54 holes. Harman was third best in the field at getting his drives onto the fairway.
By Sunday his total of putts had increased to 108 for 72 holes, and only Jason Day had taken fewer: 107. In all, Harman made 17 birdies, behind only co-runner-up Sepp Straka, who had 21. These are the sort of figures that win golf events.
It is possible that Harman had won the event not by teatime on Sunday but just before teatime on Saturday. At 3:31 p.m., Jon Rahm holed for his eighth birdie of a rampaging, storming round of 63, a Hoylake record, that sent him careering up the field. It took him to 6-under par and four strokes behind Harman.
At that moment, Harman was crossing the bridge leading to the first tee to begin his third round. The noise greeting Rahm’s effort barely 100 yards away must have shaken the foundations of the bridge Harman was crossing. Those roars could not have been what Harman wanted to hear, signifying as they did that one of the few men in the field who could rip Hoylake apart had done just that.
When Harman bogeyed two of the first four holes Saturday, his lead was down to three. That was when we saw the colour of his character. “It would have been real easy to let the wheels start spinning and let myself get out of control, but I just doubled down on my routine,” Harman said. “Staying patient out there was paramount. I am really proud of the way I hung in there.”
It helped that when the chants for Tommy Fleetwood, the local hero and third-round playing competitor, were at their loudest and some unpleasant comments were aimed at Harman, he used them to spur himself on.
“If they wanted me to not play well, then they should have been real nice to me,” he said.
“I’ve got a lot of layers, man. I’m like an onion.”
Brian Harman
By any measure, Harman is a singular man who at 5 feet, 7 inches is much smaller than many around him, including his caddie, who stands 6-3.
“I’ve got a lot of layers, man,” he said. “I’m like an onion.”
He had just bought a tractor and said he would celebrate his win by driving it for hours each day over his 40 acres. Louis Oosthuizen bought a tractor, too, after his Open win in 2010.
Not many professional golfers could catch and skin a deer at 8 years old as Harman could, and probably even fewer go hunting with a bow and arrow, make a kill, lug the carcass home to be cut up and put in his freezer.
“I like to know where my meat comes from,” he said. This is what led to the Butcher of Hoylake nickname. Asked how accurate he was with his bow, he replied: “You wouldn’t want to stand in front of me. I am good to about 80 yards, but I don’t take a shot past 40.”
Few golfers work harder than Harman. Practising is a relief for him.
“Someone once told me you should do the things that make you lose track of time,” he said. “For me, a lot of the time when I am practising hitting balls or putting when I’m at home, I lose track of time. That’s how I know I really enjoy it.”
At Hoylake, he lost track of time last week, and he really enjoyed it.
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Top: Harman sometimes made his Open victory matter of fact, but judging by his reaction after winning, it clearly wasn't.
Charlie Crowhurst, THE R&A VIA GETTY IMAGES