Brian Harman claims Open triumph as Rory McIlroy's drought continues - Five things we learned
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Updated 24/07/2023 at 16:33 GMT
American Brian Harman triumphed on Sunday at The Open after a nervy finish to his tournament having impressed for much of the weekend. While Harman revelled in his success, there are concerns for Rory McIlroy who extended his drought in Majors to over a decade, and local boy Matthew Jordan became a hero in his hometown after his success at Hoylake.
Brian Harmon
Image credit: Getty Images
Brian Harman strolls home to maiden major victory
The conversation all week was about the usual suspects, Scotty Scheffler, Rory McIlroy and Jon Rahm, but by the conclusion of Sunday, it was the relatively unknown 36-year-old Brian Harman that was hoisting the famous Claret Jug.
The American put himself firmly atop of the leaderboard after a sublime 65 on Friday during testing conditions. With four consecutive birdies from the 2nd hole to the 5th, Harman seized control, before closing out his six-under-par round with an eagle at the last and he never looked back.
At times the crowds were actively rooting against him, with regular shouts of “get in the bunker!” and one fan telling him, “You don’t have the stones for this!”, but Harman used this as motivation to silence them and erase any hope of a fan favourite win.
“You know, 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, like maybe I’m not winning again,” he said.
“The game is getting younger. All these young guys coming out, they hit it a mile, and they’re all ready to win. Like, when is it going to be my turn again?
“It’s been hard to deal with. [But] 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 it was this week, but I’m very thankful that it was.”
Harman was a master with the putter all week long, which aided him in closing out a six-shot victory and snap his six-year winless drought.
McIlroy’s decade long major drought
As another major championship comes and goes, a familiar question gets raised. When will we see McIlroy add to his tally of four? Well, when The Masters comes around next year, it will have been 10 years since he last tasted major glory.
The Open marked his 34th major start since his victory at the 2014 PGA Championship at Valhalla, and despite a battling performance in tough conditions last week at Royal Liverpool, the Northern Irishman couldn’t keep pace with runaway winner Harman.
McIlroy eventually finished in a tie for sixth, seven shots adrift of Harman’s mark of 13-under-par.
A hat-trick of birdies early on during his final round had many folk excited, but the 34-year-old’s race was realistically run the day before with another poor putting performance.
McIlroy is a mainstay in the top 10 these days with the majors, and despite not getting the job done, he was keen to look forward rather than dwell on what has happened for the last decade.
“I don’t think that way,” he insisted. “I think about trying to go and win a fourth FedEx Cup (on the PGA Tour) in a couple week’s time, go try and win a fifth Race to Dubai, go and win a fifth Ryder Cup. I just keep looking forward.”
McIlroy added, “Every time I tee it up, or most times I tee it up, I’m right there. I can’t sit here and be too frustrated. You think about my performances in the majors between like 2016 and 2019, it’s a lot better than that.”
Hometown hero Jordan delights the crowd
Matthew Jordan will remember this week at The Open for the rest of his life.
He grew up in the local area, has been a member of Royal Liverpool since he was seven, holds the course record (62) and managed to get into the major showpiece via the 36-hole qualifier up the road at West Lancashire.
Then the golf started, and he didn’t disappoint his legion of local fans.
The 27-year-old was given the honour of leading off The Open, hitting the first ball at 6:35 a.m, and if nerves were present he certainly didn’t show them. The local lad pieced together an impressive two-under 69 to sit towards the top end of the leaderboard and continued to be there or thereabouts for the duration of the tournament, even during the worsening conditions over the weekend.
As Jordan came towards the end of his challenge, he stuffed his 120-yard approach on the 18th to six feet and soaked in the rapturous applause from the grandstands as he made the walk up to the green, grinning from ear to ear.
Jordan’s impressive display was capped off by rolling in his birdie to finish at four-under-par, eventually good enough for a top 10 finish and an automatic spot at next year's Open, to be held at Royal Troon Golf Club.
“It was just the perfect finish to what has been the most unbelievable week,” Jordan said during his final press session.
“Just rolling that in, I just so wanted to knock it in just for everyone who’s supported me, just to go mental one last time and crazy. They stuck with me even in the rain like this.”
Justin Thomas’ woes continue
It has been well documented that Justin Thomas has been struggling with his game for some time now, over a year removed from his 2022 PGA Championship success. Unfortunately, his latest outing at The Open highlighted this, and in pretty catastrophic fashion during his first round.
The world No. 20 turned in an 11-over round of 82, a shot worse than his second round at last month's US Open. The nightmare outing, which featured four bogeys, two doubles and a sickening quad on the 18th, left fans in utter disbelief at the 30-year-old's struggles.
To Thomas’ credit, he went out the next day and shot a level par 71, 11 strokes better than Thursday’s effort, but by then the damage was already done and he missed the cut by eight shots. This marked his third missed cut out of the four majors this season.
The American’s form has put his Ryder Cup prospects in serious doubt ahead of the September showdown in Italy, with US Captain Zach Johnson admitting he was “concerned”.
Thomas has a great group of friends around him and Rickie Fowler, who has been through struggles of his own, expects him to bounce back.
“I don’t expect to see him going through it for very long at all. I have a lot of belief in him and his game,” he said, following his own T23 finish. “He’s someone that’s obviously very tough on himself.
“He’s got plenty of people around him that are always there to help out, guys to lean on, myself, Jordan [Spieth], and plenty of others. I’m not too worried about him.”
Big numbers and big problems with Royal Liverpool’s setup
In the build-up to the Championship, lots had been made of Royal Liverpool’s new par-3 17th hole ‘Little Eye’, a treacherous green defended by four deep bunkers, with veteran caddie Billy Foster saying they’d “created a monstrosity” - but it wasn’t just the 17th ruining scorecards, in fact the 18th claimed its fair share of victims too.
Spare a thought for poor Lucas Herbert who held a share of the lead on Thursday when arriving on the 17th tee, only to depart with a triple bogey and tumble down the order, partly in thanks to his ball resting inches from the face of a bunker, another issue that the R&A had to address.
By Friday morning, greenstaff were instructed by the R&A to alter the bunkers to give them more of a concave floor. Part of the statement read, “Yesterday afternoon the bunkers dried out more than we have seen in recent weeks and that led to more balls running straight up against the face than we would normally expect.
We have therefore raked all of the bunkers slightly differently to take the sand up one revet on the face of the bunkers.”
Whilst this provided a little more comfort to the field, the 18th’s unique internal out of bounds brought another headache. Due to the constraints of hosting a major event, the tented village was situated to right of the 18th and therefore tightened the angles and penalised any golfer who flared a tee shot right beyond the white stake.
Victims on Friday included Rickie Fowler who walked off with an eight, Taichi Kho reached double digits with a 10 and fiery Englishman Tyrell Hatton notched up a nine, before turning round and pretending to shoot the restriction that had caused him so much trouble.
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