Mark Harris
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Someone poked the bear, or in this case, the bulldog that is Brian Harman over the weekend at The Open, which turned out to be a problem for the rest of the field at Hoylake. After capping off his six-shot victory, the Georgia native admitted one heckler in particular delivered all the motivation he needed to get the job done across the pond.
With England’s Tommy Fleetwood and Europe’s golden boy Rory McIlroy within (distant) striking distance on Saturday, Harman was far from the fan favorite at Royal Liverpool. On multiple occasions over the final two rounds, you could hear fans boo the American over the broadcast.
Harman wasn’t numb to the boo birds, nor the fan that accused him of not having the stones to eventually get his hands on the Claret Jug.
“Everybody has got their team they’re rooting for. Yeah, I heard them, and I don’t hold any — if they wanted me to not play well they should have been really nice to me,” Harman said after the win.
“After I made the second bogey yesterday, a guy, when I was passing him, he said, ‘Harman, you don’t have the stones for this’. That helped.”
“That helped a lot. It helped snap me back into, ‘I’m good enough to do this. I’m going to do this. I’m going to go through my process, and the next shot is going to be good.'”
There was a moment during the back nine on Sunday when the telecast specifically mentioned a heckler near a green that shouted something not-so-friendly at Harman. He reacted by sinking yet another eight-foot par putt and giving a look in the fan’s direction.
Every facet of the 36-year-old’s game was trending for four days, to put it mildly. He was absurdly accurate off the tee finding just one single fairway bunker during the tournament and was quite literally automatic with the putter inside 10 feet going 58-for-59 for the week.
You add a heckler giving him bulletin board material he didn’t even need and there was no question Harman was going to be a major champion by Sunday afternoon.
Follow Mark Harris on Twitter @ItIsMarkHarris
He smoked everyone in the field. The UK crowds are typically good, but there are jerk stores all over the place, glad those few fueled Harman’s fire, he was so impressive.
If anything Harman’s excellence took out any competitive tension in the tournament, which included a 3rd round 63 from Rahm. I DVR’d the 2nd rd. He never missed any kind of putt, and of course hit all the greens, it was pretty amazing. He made the sport look easy.