BRIAN HARMAN STILL had six holes to play when the first carvings of his name was made on the Claret Jug. That the trophy engraver had a chance to beat the traffic is a measure of how Harman thwarted the galleries’ desperate longing for drama.
He wobbled slightly and bogeyed two of his first five holes but recovered to not only defend his five-shot lead but extend it, finishing six shots clear of the field in brutal conditions to be crowned Champions Golfer in frictionless style.
Our longing for jeopardy should not blind us to the quality of Harman’s cooly-controlled orienteer around Royal Liverpool. Having won the tournament with a round of 65 on Friday, Harman then spent the weekend refusing to lose it.
The general fan knew little of Harman before this week, with his love of live-animal hunting becoming a theme of his press engagements after he assumed the lead on Friday. Harman revealed he hunted pigs and turkeys after he missed the cut at the Masters this year, and spoke of how he loves the strategy of the hunt. In the golf world, his hunting record is second only to LIV’s year-long slaughter of sacred cows.
Harman certainly had the right strategy for Hoylake, scuttling about the course like a more assertive Elmer Fudd, playing the percentages around the course as smoke continued to billow from his putter.
He enjoyed little support from the galleries who began pulling for Tommy Fleetwood and Rory McIlroy but were happy to cheer for anyone who might put a bit of pressure on the leader.
The early stages suggested that we might just have that drama in malign conditions. The wind blew, the sky leaked bales of rain, and Harman blinked. He salvaged par at the first and then made bogey on the second, before flighting an iron right of the green and within five feet of the out-of-bounds mark on the third. That he managed to get up and down for his par from the tangled greenside was superb. He flew left into gorse off the fifth tee and made bogey, at which point Hoylake pulsed with the thrill of a potential chase.
Jon Rahm led the charge, at one point cutting Harman’s lead to three by getting lucky off the fifth tee. He too flighted his ball left toward the gorse, but it somehow dropped onto a clean lie between the bushes.
Rory McIlroy, meanwhile came out hot, birdieing holes three, four, and five. McIlroy trailed by nine shots overnight: all of a sudden he was four back and in a tie for second place.
But then Harman flexed his resilience. Harman made four bogeys prior to his first today, and twice he followed up with a birdie. He then went to the par-three sixth and made it three for five, adding another birdie at seven to go back to even-par for the day. The pretenders couldn’t find the final gear they needed. McIlroy had a 12 foot putt for birdie on the ninth that needed to drop but instead drifted to the left of the hole. A bogey on 10 ended McIlroy’s charge, meaning his major drought will stretch to at least 10 years.
McIlroy is incredibly consistent in the majors – he has been in the top 10 in seven of the last eight and has 20 top-10s in the last nine years – but his flaws are familiar too. He was a little too loose off the tee today, but would have had a far greater margin of error had ice not fallen from his putter yesterday. McIlroy ultimately played the 12 par-fives in four-under across the week, a couple of shots too meagre. It was on these he built his victory in 2014, when he hit back-to-back eagles on the closing par-fives on Saturday.
“If it weren’t for one guy, I’d be right there”, reflected McIlroy after his round. “I am playing well, there’s nothing more I can really say. I keep putting myself in there. When I look back on my career, am I going to remember my fifth place at Hoylake in 2023? Probably not. But still, another really solid performance.”
Rahm faded too, a string of pars and a bogey on nine meant Harman had a six-shot lead as he made the turn.
From there the drama centred on the eddying battle for second place, with Sepp Straka and Tom Kim briefly threatening to assail Harman. But the leader remained impervious to all. Harman made bogey on 13 but repeated the trick of his front nine and made back-to-back birdies, at which point the engraver went to work on the most famous trophy in golf. Kim and Straka finished in a tie for second, alongside Rahm and Jason Day, who closed with an admirable 69.
Kim’s four-under 67 was the best round of the day, matched by Scottie Scheffler – finishing in the unfamiliarly low position of T23 – and last year’s winner of the Irish Open, Adrian Meronk.
Padraig Harrington was the oldest man to play the weekend and posted a closing 74, ending up in a tie for 64th place alongside, among others, a very underwhelming Brooks Koepka.
Harrington will play the senior Open and next week and will then swing for the DP World Tour, as he bids to force his way into contention for the Ryder Cup.
Harman ultimately won his war with the crowd’s apathy, soaking up warm applause from the grandstands on 18. He flighted his iron into a right-side bunker. These were Hoylake’s main barricade, but he shredded it as he did the field. He chipped to the green and easily rolled in one last putt for par.
Winning the Open Championship isn’t meant to be this easy.