Weekly PGA Recap: Harman Hits The Hammer

A rain-soaked Brian Harman made one final victorious putt in a week of so many big-time putts. He smiled and embraced his caddie. But he did not hand over his putter. Harman waived to the fans, circled the 18th green, threw the winning ball into the gallery, then made the long walk up the Royal Liverpool steps leading to a pathway to the scorer's tent. Before entering, he received a congratulatory bearhug from fellow Georgia alum Sepp Straka.

Nearly 10 minutes had gone by and he was still holding his putter.

Harman finally parted with that magical club, handing it to caddie Scott Tway before signing his scorecard, which officially made him the Champion Golfer of the Year.

The 36-year-old Harman put on a golf show for the ages, running away with the 151st Open Championship by six strokes on Sunday at Hoylake for the first major title of his career.

For the record, the putter is a TaylorMade Spider OS CBT -- with a head almost the size of a driver -- but it's also called a TaylorMade Daddy Long Legs -- for obvious reasons -- which is funny considering Harman stands all of 5 feet, 7 inches tall. But it helped him make an astounding 58 of 59 putts inside 10 feet and gain more than 11 strokes on the field on the greens. He had zero three-putts. The veteran left-hander needed only 106 putts all week, which the Open people said were the fewest by a champion in 20 years. 

Harman won at 13-under-par, leaving everyone else to fight for the second place. That was shared by the quartet of Jon Rahm, Jason Day, Tom Kim and Straka.

To be sure, Harman did so much more than putt. He gained shots on the field in every strokes-gained metric in a master class of links golf, especially in Sunday's rainy English conditions. But the biggest weapons in Harman's arsenal no doubt are his grit, heart and determination. He's a bulldog out there, and not just because he went to Georgia.

For years, the 155ish-pound Harman has been battling golfers getting bigger and stronger and more powerful. He ranks only 144th on the PGA Tour in driving distance. But he is top-10 in driving accuracy, which is why he's a more than respectable top-50 in Strokes Gained: Off-the-Tee. At Hoylake, he led the field in fairways hit at 75 percent.

Harman is just the latest in a long line of diminutive athletes to overcome physical limitations with heart and soul. Think: Messi, Maradona, Jose Altuve, Doug Flutie, Michael Chang and golfers Ian Woosnam and Corey Pavin, to name a handful.

Despite spending more than a decade on Tour, playing well over 300 tournaments, and amassing $30 million-plus in earnings -- numbers 99.9 percent of golfers would hope for - Harman hasn't won a whole lot. In fact, it had been six years since he won for the second time, at the 2017 Wells Fargo. Just a month later, he nearly captured the U.S. Open but ended up tied for second behind Brooks Koepka. So close.

"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 told the assembled media at Hoylake.

"It's been hard to deal with. I think someone mentioned that I've had more top-10s than anyone since 2017, so that's a lot of times where you get done, you're like, dammit, man, I had that one; it just didn't happen for whatever reason.

"Yeah, 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."

Harman did, in fact, have the most top-10s on Tour since 2017 of anyone without a win in that time, with 29. That left-handed compliment now belongs to Tommy Fleetwood at 27.

Harman made only six bogeys all week, three of them on Sunday, but that's when his resilience was on full display -- four of those times he followed with bounce-back birdies.

As big as winning a major is for Harman, what happens next will be pretty sweet, too. He almost surely guaranteed himself his first Ryder Cup berth for the upcoming competition in Italy. Officially, he moved into third place in the U.S. standings and the top six after the BMW Championship in four weeks automatically get selected. In the unlikely event he'd slip from the top six at this late date , he'd surely be one of Zach Johnson's captain's picks. 

Earlier on Sunday, before the Claret Jug had been lifted, Johnson was asked about his Georgia neighbor and good friend's chances. He called Harman -- who, by the way, zoomed to a career-best No. 10 in the world rankings -- "gritty."

"He is a very formidable competitor, number one," Johnson said after his own fourth round was completed.

"Number two, hey, what does (he) do really well? Well, he does everything quite well. He's a very good driver of the golf ball and a very, very, very good putter.

"Then if everything else is good, then it can be pretty lethal."

Across four days in northwest England, every single thing was very good for Harman, and he was pretty dang lethal.

MONDAY BACKSPIN

Jon Rahm
Rahm shot a course-record 63 on Saturday, then started fast on Sunday. But he was too far behind and Harman never let up. This runner-up sets Rahm up nicely for the playoffs and then the Ryder Cup, because he had hardly done a thing since winning the Masters three months ago.

Tom Kim
Even though it hasn't been a great sophomore season for Kim, it was a great run in the majors, which many people would say makes it a great season. He was part of the four-way tie for second this week, which followed a tie for eighth at the U.S. Open and a T16 at the Masters. He has only one other top-25 in the past six months, though. Kim hurt his ankle in his rental home and considered withdrawing. Good thing he didn't. But it still bears watching the rest of the season.

Jason Day
A win would've been nicer, but Day became the ninth golfer to complete the career runner-up slam. More importantly, it ended a dry spell that began after he won the Byron Nelson two months back. Day is now up to 21st in the world, his best position during his resurgence.

Sepp Straka
Straka was the fourth of the quad-runners-up, joining fellow Georgia Bulldog Harman on the podium. He also likely will join him in the Ryder Cup, with the Austrian coming on strong with a win at the John Deere preceding the Open Championship.

Rory McIlroy
There are only so many ways you can write "almost" or "he was close again." McIlroy tied for sixth and now, in his past eight Opens, he's finished 1st, 2nd, 3rd, 4th, 5th and 6th. Not too shabby, though we're sure he doesn't find much solace in it. McIlroy has finished top-10 in seven of his past eight majors.

Cameron Young
It hasn't been a great season for Young, but like with Kim, the majors were better. He was T7 at the Masters and now T8 at the Open. Young won't be happy because he played in the final group on Sunday and faded. Understandable. He was solo second last year, so he seems to have these links courses down pat.

Max Homa
Finally, finally, finally. A good major for Homa. Very good, even. His first top-10. He tied for 10th, and this may be the jolt he needed to open the door to better major results. U.S. Ryder Cup captain Zach Johnson was certainly happy to see Homa have a good week on European soil.

Matthew Jordan
One of the feel-good stories of the Open, the 27-year-old Englishman has been a Royal Liverpool member since he was 7. Not only did he hit the first shot of the tournament on Thursday morning, but his final shot on Sunday resulted in a birdie and a tie for 10th, meaning he will play in next year's Open at Royal Troon, too.

Tommy Fleetwood
This was a tough one for Fleetwood -- the hometown hero -- and his legion of fans. The Englishman played the third round in the final group alongside Harman but never got anything going, then fell further back on Sunday. He tied for 10th. If he couldn't win this Open, it's fair to wonder whether he ever will win one.

Scottie Scheffler
The streaks had to end sometime -- seven straight top-5s, 18 straight top-12s dating back to October. Scheffler wound up in a tie for 23rd (horrors!), his first non-top-10 in a major this season. He's No. 1 in the world, he's clearly the best player this season -- and yet, he now hasn't won since THE PLAYERS four months ago. That's not nothing.

Stewart Cink
A shoutout to the 2009 champion and recent 50th birthday boy for finishing  top-25 (T23) and winning the unofficial title of low-50-something.

Brooks Koepka
Koepka's inevitable march to double-digit majors (sarcasm) stalled for the second straight major. After tying for 17th at the U.S. Open, he tied for 64th. See you in April at the Masters.

Brothers

Alex Fitzpatrick (T17) won low Fitzpatrick over older bro Matt Fitzpatrick (T41) and Nicolai Hojgaard (T23) won low Hojgaard over twin brother Rasmus Hojgaard (MC).

MISSED CUTS

There are always a bunch. Justin Thomas, Collin Morikawa, Tony Finau, Shane Lowry, Justin Rose, Sam Burns, Dustin Johnson, Talor Gooch, Phil Mickelson, Joaquin Niemann and Sahith Theegala, to note the biggest names. The key here, of course, is Thomas, whose months-long slump continues. Morikawa has now missed two Open cuts in a row since his surprise win in his Open debut in 2021.

BARRACUDA CHAMPIONSHIP

Any other week, this great storyline would've generated interest. But opposite the Open Championship, not so much. A veteran and a rookie went to a playoff, each looking for his first PGA Tour win. The rookie, much touted 21-year-old Akshay Bhatia, won on the first extra hole over Patrick Rodgers, who was highly touted himself, albeit about a decade ago. This is the tournament that uses the Modified Stableford Scoring System, and they tied at 40 points after Bhatia birdied the 72nd hole. Then Rodgers got a bad break when his playoff drive settled in a divot, and Bhatia won with a par. He gets a two-year exemption and berths in THE PLAYERS and PGA Championship but not the Masters. The win got him full PGA Tour membership and he will enter the FedEx Cup standings in around 90th place. He'd need to be in the top-70 after the Wyndham Championship in two weeks to qualify for the playoffs.