You hate to be the person who says, well, “imagine this leaderboard if the guy who is leading wasn’t actually up there.”
But through 54 holes at The Open Championship, that’s where we’re at.
Brian Harman, kudos to him, has a five-shot lead heading into Sunday’s finale at Royal Liverpool. It will take a historical kind of collapse for him to lose this thing. Garry Harvey is the official engraver of the Claret Jug — he took over for his father, Alex — and he might as well have at least the ‘B’ started. Maybe even the ‘r.’
The storylines bubbling under the surface of Harman’s full-hand lead, however, will keep us engaged, if not entertained, for the final round. Especially since the largest 54-hole lead to lose The Open was also five shots (it’s happened twice, most recently being Jean Van de Velde in 1999).
We should, however, start at the top.
Harman has never wavered through three rounds at Royal Liverpool. Although he bogeyed two of his first four holes Saturday, Harman made four birdies in a nine-hole stretch through the middle of his round and shot a 2-under 69, emphasized by a tricky 15-foot par save on his final hole.
He sits at 12 under through 54 holes and leads Cameron Young by five.
Harman has the most top-10s on the PGA Tour over the last five years (without a victory, however) and has a game that seems tailor-made for The Open. He’s first on Tour in putts shorter than six feet, second in bogey avoidance, 12th in driving efficiency, and fourth in scrambling.
Harman has won only twice on Tour, but he had a solid amateur and collegiate career, and has parlayed that into more than $22-million (U.S.) in career earnings. Also, he made two holes-in-one in a round in 2015. Harman is on track to make the FedExCup Playoffs for the 12th straight season, and his ongoing body-of-work on the game’s biggest stage is beyond solid.
Certainly not a bad career, but that could all change in a big way come Sunday.
“I’ve thought about winning majors for my whole entire life,” Harman said. “It’s the whole reason I work as hard as I do and why I practise as much as I do and why I sacrifice as much as I do.”
Harman said Saturday he was a big hunter. Six or eight hours packing up elk on a Colorado mountain kind of hunting. He said he was so disappointed having missed the cut at the Masters earlier this year that he went home and killed both a pig and a turkey. He eats a lot of wild meat at his house and does the butchering himself.
To borrow a hackneyed cliché, then: the hunter has become the hunted.
Young, who finished second a year ago at St Andrews, is right back in the same spot 12 months later after he fired a tidy 5-under 66 Saturday. He said he’s leaned into the “fun” aspect of playing links golf these last two trips around The Open.
“I was excited to get over here and play. I really enjoy this kind of golf, and I’ve had a good time playing this week,” said Young.
Nipping at Young’s heels is world No. 3 Jon Rahm, who fired a course-record 63 on Saturday, calling it the best round he’s ever played on a links course in his life.
Rahm, who won the Masters in April — one of four wins on the PGA Tour already this season — is aiming to become the first golfer to win two majors in a season since Brooks Koepka in 2018.
“It feels really good,” Rahm said, “but it’s a lot of work to do tomorrow.”
So, the top two chasers on the leaderboard are the reigning PGA Tour Rookie of the Year and the reigning Masters winner. Pretty good. Then, amongst the group tied for fourth at 4 under is top-10-in-the-world mainstay Viktor Hovland, former world No.1 Jason Day, local-lad Tommy Fleetwood (he grew up about 45 minutes from Royal Liverpool) and feel-good story Alex Fitzpatrick — another Englishman who got through open qualifying and is the brother of last year’s U.S. Open winner, Matt Fitzpatrick.
How about Tom Kim on a torn-ligament ankle a shot back, at 3 under, alongside Matthew Jordan (a member at Royal Liverpool!) and Rory McIlroy — who came into the week with all the confidence in the world after his Genesis Scottish Open triumph and who won The Open the last time it was played at this course? Oh, and amongst those a shot further back, at 2 under, is Alex Fitzpatrick’s aforementioned brother, Matt.
Canadian Corey Conners fired a 3-under 68 in the third round, his best round of the week, and is now at 1 under and inside the top 25. His best result at The Open is a tie for 18th, and he appears trending towards topping that Sunday.
Conners is, however, 11 shots back of Harman.
No one is giving up, despite the Claret Jug engraver already sharpening his tools.
“It really is down to Brian,” said Fleetwood. “Take him out of it, two away from the next best contender, so you go out, play well, and shoot the best score of the day, then you know there’s one person that’s left. That’s the way you’ve just got to look at it.”
You don’t get a five-shot lead and a glorious chance to win a major without playing some pretty darn good golf. The plan for Harman remains the same for Sunday, even though there’s something big on the line at the end.
“Tomorrow if that’s going to come to fruition for me, it has to be all about the golf,” Harman said. “It has to be execution and just staying in the moment.”
But imagine what the leaderboard would be without him?
