Skinning deer at the age of eight and skinning the world’s finest golfers at 36. Whatever folk in this country might say about Brian Harman’s hobbies, there can be no doubting the magnificence with which this 200-1 shot became the winner of the 151st Open Championship on Sunday evening.
He finished this tournament in much the same way that he had dominated it – by rolling in the sort of putt that bigger men with bigger names had been missing all week.
When the ball dropped after its final journey of eight feet, Harman clenched his right fist and was just about the happiest man to ever stand on boggy grass in driving rain.
But by then there was no surprise. Not anymore.
There had been when he sat one off the lead on Thursday, and more so when he surged to five clear through rounds two and three. That whole time we waited for him to fall, to give in to the pressure of his circumstances, but when he addressed that last putt he had already pulled this field apart.
American golfer Brian Harman won the first major of his career at the Open on Sunday
His putting was superb as he held off challenges from some of the sport’s biggest names
His final margin of victory? A quite astonishing six strokes, that being the difference between his tally of 13 under par and the quartet of Jon Rahm, Sepp Straka, Jason Day and Tom Kim behind him. Daylight in the bleakest of weather.
Since 1913, only one man has won The Open by more and that was Tiger Woods. Harman now stands alongside him and Rory McIlroy as a recent winner of this championship on these famous Hoylake links.
The temptation here will be to talk about an underdog story, because outside the ropes of his sport, Harman is entirely anonymous.
That would perhaps explain the intrigue and grimaces on this side of the Atlantic in the discussions around his love of hunting, complete with some gruesome pictures of his conquests.
But as the world No 26, his arrival on the winner’s stage should not necessarily be seen as a bolt from the blue – it is not on a par with Ben Curtis in 2003. And yet it is still quite startling, for he has not won on the PGA Tour for six years and has only twice been in the top-10 at a major, including his runner-up placing at the 2017 US Open.
He told us this week how he had allowed that occasion to get the better of him, but here his composure was best expressed through the sheer brilliance of his putting. For so long golf has bemoaned the scourge of big hitting, but this was a victory built on the flat stick.
Indeed, for driving distance, this unimposing chap of 5ft 7ins was nowhere near the top 100, but on those crucial putts of 10 feet and in he made 58 out of 59. At a major championship, that is utterly remarkable.
With the Claret Jug perched next to him, having dried the tears from his eyes after a closing round of 70, Harman said: ‘I’ve always had a self-belief that I could do something like this. It’s just when it takes so much time it’s hard not to let your mind falter. I’m 36 years old and the game is getting younger.
The 36-year-old said after the win he ‘always had the self belief to do something like this’
He began to dominate with a brilliant second round that took him five strokes clear at the top
‘It’s been hard to deal with. I think someone mentioned that I’ve had more top 10s (on the PGA Tour) than anyone since 2017, so that’s a lot of times where you are like, “Damn it, man”.
‘It just didn’t happen for whatever reason. I don’t know why this week, but I’m very thankful that it was.’
Sometimes golf has that habit of delivering those weeks. For McIlroy, the question is when one will next come along in a major.
He needs no reminding that his wait for a fifth will now drag into a 10th year, which will possibly dominate his thoughts more than any satisfaction of yet another good placing – his final-round 68 took him to six under par and a tie for sixth.
That’s nice in isolation, but he missed far too many putts across the tournament, which begs the familiar question of whether the missing piece is technical or mental.
Tommy Fleetwood will also have regrets – his opening 66 was sublime, but in wrapping up with a 72, caused by a nightmarish triple bogey on 17 on Sunday, he had played the final three rounds in one over. The 31-year curse of Englishman at The Open lives on.
Not that anyone could have caught Harman on Sunday. In conditions unconducive to low scoring, all the chasers could hope for was the sort of capitulation not seen since Jean van der Velde in 1999. It didn’t happen.
Tommy Fleetwood will have regrets after failing to build on a brilliant 66 in the opening round
Sepp Straka (left) and Jon Rahm (right) threatened to put pressure on Harman but fell short
Even when Harman wobbled with bogeys at two and five, taking his overnight lead of five down to three over Rahm, who had birdied the fifth, he responded with successive birdies from 13 feet and 23 feet at six and seven.
Another bogey came at the par-three 13th, when he missed his only short putt of the week, but once more he followed it by gaining shots on the next two holes. He was a machine and Rahm was not – after that early birdie the Spaniard played his final 13 holes in even par.
Other little thrusts came from Straka, an Austrian Ryder Cup hopeful who closed a superb tournament with a 69, and the brilliant Korean Tom Kim, who shot 67.
They deserved their share of second. But they were never going to hunt down the hunter.