Friday At The Open Championship
Brian Harman takes a five-stroke lead into the weekend. Plus, international charm, a Little Eye ace, the R&A tries to address bunker controversy, course stats and an improving Saturday forecast.
We morphed from the tallest player co-leading round one to the most vertically-challenged trying to make this a runaway. Translation: Brian Harman is your 8/5 favorite heading into Open Championship weekend at Hoylake.
Imagine being out of the loop all of Friday to learn that keeper.
The wee 36-year-old Georgian eagled the 18th hole to shoot 65 during some of the most difficult winds on a sunny, festive day. The rain held off until 8:30 p.m. local time and even then it hasn’t been enough to help the dusty bunkers. Maybe tomorrow
How unlikely was the field-low 65 or are Harman’s prospects for victory?
In 30 major championship starts, Harman has two top tens and four top 20’s. His best finish came at the 2017 U.S. Open (2) and the 2022 Open (T6), the latter finish earning him a spot in The 151st’s field.
Harman leads Tommy Fleetwood by five, Sepp Straka by six and a group of seven back that includes Min Woo Lee, Shubhankar Sharma and Jason Day.
Sharma, the 26-year-old from Chandigarh, India and who has two DP World Tour wins, put Harman’s incredible day into perspective.
“Anyone will take 6-under today,” Sharma said. “It's like shooting 10-under on any other golf course, so that's amazing. But two more days to go, and it'll be exciting.”
How did Harman explain his ability to crack links golf?
“I love the golf over here,” he said after a 23-putt round. “I missed four or five cuts in a row coming over here, and I couldn't figure out why I wasn't playing well. Then the last couple years I had some good finishes and just kind of felt like, all right, now at least I feel like I love the golf and I'm playing decently over here.”
Harman’s links experience has been relegated to Open and Scottish Open venues.
In recent times he’s become better known for his post-Masters missed cut disappointment and pride in killing a pig and a turkey to alleviate his suffering. The Saturday tabloids should be fun.
“I've been a hunter my entire life,” he said in a press conference that turned mildly morbid. “I enjoy the strategy of it. We eat a lot of wild meat at my house, so I enjoy butchering, and I do a lot of hunting.”
Harman recently purchased a 1,000 acre farm and likes to post photos of his kills. Throughout the bloodshed and meat eating, he has remained around 5’7” in hat and spikes. Whether he can hunt down the Claret Jug by Sunday night will be up to to his ability to withstand pressure and hold off an international cast of stars, journeyman and re-configurated pot bunkers.
Need To Know
76 players were at +3 or better to make the cut.
First round leader Christo Lamprecht followed up his opening 66 with 79 to make the cut on the number.
Matthew Jordan made a miraculous double bogey from over the 17th green to finish -1 and T11.
Talor Gooch, LIV’s best player in 2023, finished +8. Henrik Stenson is the low LIV player at -1/T11.
The Open’s International Charm
Huge, happy crowds made for a festive setting Friday and I jotted notes so I could wax on about the joys of seeing world golfers come together. No other major captures such an international flavor like The Open. I was going to write about the absurdity of a small American contingent of top players—who happened to be in the right place at the right time post-Tiger and pre-Saudi sportwash—sat in a Delaware hotel and steered the PGA Tour to remain largely a domestic operation. That xenophobic stance has now led to turmoil, undermined their future, and has fueled a remarkable amount of rooting from other parts of the world for any cause designed to compete against the PGA Tour.
The view of selfish Americans has been coming up a lot in conversations at Hoyake this week, with strong resistance to the America-centric scheduling of tournaments. I have to think those sentiments will only be exascerbated after seeing the world come together in Hoylake.
I could also say more but then Scotland’s Richie Ramsay (+3) did a better job of explaining why The Open and gatherings in different parts of the world take on such a special feel.
Asked about the crowds here and their passion for the home country players from this part of the UK, he offered this assessment.
RICHIE RAMSAY: I think we had this a little bit at Birkdale. I wasn't a local player, but if you look at where we're situated, like they kind of get missed out a little bit because we have the PGA at Wentworth. We always have the Scottish Open and then The Open goes north, and this is the only tournament where they come, and obviously Birkdale and here and probably Lytham, it comes every three, four years.
There's a big catchment, and I just think people get behind The Open.
The fact that it does what it says, it is The Open. There's people from Japan playing, there's people who have qualified last year in Australia. I would love it if certain majors changed some criteria to open up because we as professionals love playing in that, especially guys who don't get to do it year by year.
I think you should see how special it is and people just coming out and enjoying it, and when they have someone to pin their hopes on, it's quite cool to follow, and you've got a vested interest, as well.
Ace At The Little Eye
Australia’s Travis Smyth made the fhe first hole-in-one this week with a one-hopper into the cup. The 28-year-old posted 78-72 and will miss the cut but leaves with an ace at the new 17th hole:
The first hole-in-one from The 151st Open at Royal Liverpool. To make it even sweeter, Smyth aced the new hole—dubbed “Little Eye”—with a one-hopper into the cup!