In the end, success in golf always comes down to the numbers. And Brian Harman winning The Open Championship on Sunday by six shots tells you everything you need to know.
Harman missed just one putt inside of 10 feet all week at Royal Liverpool. He made only six bogeys over 72 holes and followed a bogey with a birdie four times. When the dust settled, Harman became the third golfer in the last 40 years to win a major by six or more shots.
Harman’s Open Championship triumph in Hoylake, England wasn’t the most exciting, nor is he the most needle-moving person in men’s golf. Even his planned celebration is set to be fairly low key — he recently got new tractor for his hunting cabin and plans, after a few days of visiting his family at their lake house in upstate New York, to put his phone away and mow his 40 acres.
But you win a major by a half-dozen shots and all that’s left is a tip of the cap.
“I’m over the moon,” Harman said. “There were fleeting thoughts throughout the day, but I told myself I wasn’t going to let any of that come into my brain. So, any time it came, I just thought of something else. I really honestly didn’t think about winning until I had the ball on the green on 18.”
The victory was Harman’s third on the PGA Tour. He earned $3,000,000 (U.S.) for the win, the biggest first-place prize in Open Championship history.
Harman started the day with a five-shot advantage and there were plenty of notables nipping at his heels with hopes of creating some kind of Sunday drama, including world No. 3 Jon Rahm, coming in off a Saturday 63, and world No. 2 Rory McIlroy, who had an outside shot to go back-to-back after his Genesis Scottish Open win last week.
There were some roller-coaster results from the aforementioned duo, but such is links golf — and especially links golf in the kind of Sunday weather at Royal Liverpool, a soaked-to-the-bone kind of English rain falling all day — where the bogeys would come as quick as the birdies.
“I’m looking at the forecast, and I’m like, what the hell do (the weather forecasters) know, and I get out here and it’s Armageddon. It was bad. It was really tough,” Harman said.
Harman began his final round in a similar fashion to his third round, going two over through his first five holes. He made back-to-back birdies on Nos. 6 and 7, though, and although he added a bogey on the par-3 13th, again he made back-to-back birdies. The final two circles on the scorecard, on Nos. 14 and 15, were the daggers. The trophy engraver began his work.
A foursome of golfers finished at seven under and tied for second, including Tom Kim, Sepp Straka, Jason Day, and Rahm. Rahm’s result was perhaps most impressive, as he started the week with a 3-over 74 on Thursday.
Still, he knows it was not his week.
“(Harman) won by six. It’s not like he won by two or three. He won by six, so there’s nothing really any of us could have done. There’s nothing any of us could have done,” Rahm said.
McIlroy finished tied for sixth with Emiliano Grillo, while Shubhankar Sharma and Cameron Young finished tied for eighth — with Sharma notching the best-ever finish by a golfer from India in The Open.
Max Homa earned his best-career major result finishing tied for 10th alongside Tommy Fleetwood and Matthew Jordan, a Royal Liverpool member who had the honour of hitting the opening shot of the week Thursday morning.
“It was just the perfect finish to what has been the most unbelievable week,” Jordan said.
McIlroy opened with three straight birdies and began his hearty climb up the leaderboard, only to bogey Nos 10 and 16. Instead, McIlroy will head to the 2024 Masters a decade removed from his last major triumph. It’s not like he hasn’t been knocking on the door, however. He’s finished in the top-8 in seven of the last eight majors, the lone blemish being the missed cut at the Masters in April.
“Over the last two years would I have loved to have picked one of those off that I finished up there? Absolutely,” McIlroy said. “But every time I tee it up or most times I tee it up, I’m right there. I can’t sit here and be too frustrated.”
Canadian Corey Conners finished well back after a tough Sunday. His 5-over 76 moved him down to a tie for 52nd.
Harman — who planned on drinking a few Guinness out of the iconic Claret Jug on Sunday night — was just so dominating.
Not with his distance (he’s never had that as a strength), but he hit it into just three bunkers all week (including one on the 72nd hole when the championship had been decided) and made 45 of 45 putts inside five feet with no three putts. He gained a mind-bending 11.57 strokes on the field with his putter.
Harman had been so steady his whole career, earning the most top-10 finishes of anyone on the PGA Tour since 2017 without a victory. He had the self-belief he could win a major, he said, but as he got older he couldn’t help but have his mind wander to not winning ever gain.
“I’m 36 years old. Game is getting younger. All these young guys coming out, hit it a mile, and they’re all ready to win. Like, when is it going to be my turn again?” Harman mused. “It’s been hard to deal with.
“To come out and put a performance like that together, like start to finish, just had a lot of control. I don’t know why this week, but I’m very thankful that it was this week.”
Another week where the numbers don’t lie. Brian Harman, by six shots, is your Champion Golfer of the Year.