Hoylake, England – Brian Harman was dubbed “Brian the Butcher” by a British tabloid due to his penchant for hunting and eating wild game.
But it was the American golfer’s short and finesse that helped him reach his best round on Big Friday and take a five-stroke lead into the last 36 holes of the 151st Open at Royal Liverpool Golf Club.
Harman, the 26th-ranked player in the world, birdied four holes on the front nine and closed with a 15th-ranked eagle on the 18th to score a 6-under 65 in the second round. A total of 36 holes of 10-under 132 matches with former Royal Liverpool Open winners Tiger Woods in 2006 and Rory McIlroy in 2014.
“I’ve had a hot racket the past couple of days, so try to ride it over the weekend,” Harman said. “You have to go thirty-six holes, so try to rest and get ready. Pleased with the way I’m playing. Just really focus on getting some rest and getting after that tomorrow.”
On a day when Harman was down, the links course wasn’t easy for everyone. England’s Tommy Fleetwood is the only player to hit 5 hits off Harman in 5-under. Austrian Sepp Straka, a former University of Georgia player as Harman, is 4-under. Australians Min Woo Lee and Jason Day and India’s Shubhankar Sharma are 3 under.
Fleetwood, who is aiming to win their first major championship, garnered the most fan support this weekend. He grew up in Southport, about 30 miles from Royal Liverpool.
“Brian had a great couple of days,” said Fleetwood. “He’s got a long way to go. Of course, there’s a long way to go, but still, for me and everyone else who plays, it’s just do what you want, play one shot at a time. We don’t know what conditions it’s going to bring, and you just have to keep playing until it’s over and see what you end up with.”
McIlroy, trying to end a nearly nine-year drought without a major victory, needed a birdie on the 18th to be under number one after 36 holes. He is tied for tenth place entering the weekend.
“I may be a 9-year-old, but I don’t think there will be a lot of guys between me and the lead this weekend,” McIlroy said. “Depends on the conditions tomorrow. Obviously it depends on what Brian does as well. Right now it’s not quite out of my hands, but at the same time, I think if I can get to par 3, 4 and 5 tomorrow, I’ll have a really good chance.”
Harman may have to deal with tough conditions as he tries to hold on to the big lead. There is a 98% chance of rain on Saturday and an 85% chance of light showers on Sunday.
According to ESPN Stats & Information, there have been 19 instances in the history of major tournaments when a player has a 36-hole lead of 5 or more strokes. All but four of them went on to win, including the last eight. The last player who failed to make a 36-hole lead of 5 or more shots was Bobby Clampett in the 1982 Open Championship.
Jordan Spieth is second and US Open winner Windham Clark is number one, but many of the game’s biggest stars have struggled to make the cut. Masters champion John Rahm passed second, while PGA Championship winner Scotty Scheffler, world number one Scotty Scheffler, Brooks Koepka, Patrick Cantlay and Adam Scott arrived on the cut line at 3 over. Also on the cutting line was amateur Christo Lambrecht, who tied for the lead after the first round but scored a 79 on Friday.
“I guess we’ll just have to look at what Brian is going to do,” said Spieth. “He’s in control now. He’s on it. I watched some of his run. He made a lot of hits. He chipped. He did what you need here, hitting fairways and greens as well. That gives you those 20 feet, and you have enough of it, you’ll start putting it out here, and that’s what it does.”
Harman became the third left-handed player to win The Open Championship. Bob Charles (1963) and Phil Mickelson (2013) were the other two Southerners to take over the Clarets’ pitcher.
Harman is a two-time winner on the PGA Tour, most recently at the 2017 Wells Fargo Championship. He’s been in contention several times since then but hasn’t won. He has earned 29 top-10 finishes on the PGA Tour since the start of the 2017-18 season, the most by any player without a win. Fleetwood ranks second with 26.
“I’m not sure,” Harman said when asked why he didn’t win more. “I think about it a lot, obviously. I’m around a big group. It was hard to be patient. I felt like after I won the tournament and had a really good shot at the US Open in 2017, I probably would have done more, and it just didn’t happen. I was there, and it just didn’t.”
This is not the first time that Harman has taken the lead after 36 holes in a major. At the 2017 US Open at Erin Hills in Wisconsin, Harman shared the 36-hole lead and had a one-stroke advantage over Fleetwood, Koepka and Justin Thomas after 54. He scored a par-72 going into the final round and tied for second, 4 strokes behind Koepka.
“I just don’t try to get sucked into it,” Harman said. “It’s just golf. I think when I was 54 holes into the US Open, I probably thought about it a lot. I just wasn’t focused on sleeping and eating right, so that’s going to be my focus this weekend.”
Harman is one of the smallest players on the PGA Tour at 5 feet 7 inches and about 150 pounds. Koepka was able to beat it at Erin Hills, which at the time was the longest run in US Open history at 7,741 yards.
Links-style golfing suits Harman better. He ranked 142nd on the week in driving distance of 294.1 yards. It was 14th in driving accuracy (67.2%) and second in stealth avoidance (12.3%). Through 36 holes at Royal Liverpool, he has found 75% of the fairways and carded only one bogey.
Harman’s best save came in the second round on the par-4 12th hole. He pulled his car into the lane bowl dugout and had to throw the ball backwards. He pulled his approach away from the green but clipped from 52 feet out. He’ll need more breaks like that to hang on to the lead this weekend.
Four-time major champion McIlroy was asked about the pressure of having such a lead on golf’s biggest stage and what the next 48 hours will be like for Harman.
“Don’t get ahead of yourself,” McIlroy said, “and don’t think about what could happen or what should happen or what you’re going to drink from Claret Jug.” “You just have to stay in the moment and stay in the moment. Brian is a very laid back guy, he doesn’t snap, so I think he’ll be fine.”