Defending champion Brian Harman is hoping for some more testing weather conditions as he goes in hunt of his second Major Championship title and to bring the Claret Jug back to St. Simon’s Island in Georgia for the second successive year.
And having confirmed that he has both the game and the resolve to tackle one of golf’s greatest tests, he’d welcome the wind to blow again and ask the game’s elite players to step outside their comfort zone and flight the ball differently to the week-to-week requirements on the PGA and DP World Tours.
“Yeah, I think that’s probably one of the most important things when you’re playing links golf, being able to hit a piercing golf shot that stays underneath the wind. Being able to work the ball against the wind, whichever way it’s blowing,” he said in his pre-tournament press conference.
“A lot of times, if you let a ball kind of go with the wind, it has trouble stopping going that way. Yeah, that’s the rub of the Open Championship and links golf in general. You’ve got to control the trajectory on your golf ball.
“That’s what makes this my favorite major to play in because that’s still a skill that I think is very important and sometimes gets lost in some other places.”
As the defending champion, he’s in the spotlight, although he has yet to win since capturing the Claret Jug at Royal Liverpool, and a T2 finish at The Players Championship back in March is the closest he’s come. He doesn’t feel that the additional pressure that comes with the ‘defending champion’s’ tag will be a negative, however.
“No, it doesn’t,” he replied. “I think it would probably add a little bit of pressure, but I don’t think you ever really know what you’re capable of until something like that happens.
“At least now I know that if things go my way, I’m well prepared. I’m a tough guy to beat, and if I just prepare the proper way, then take care of what I can do, then I’ll give myself the best opportunity to have another chance.”
Still, if he is forced to watch somebody else go home with the Claret Jug on Sunday evening, he’ll have fond memories and will know that he treated the game’s oldest major’s trophy with the respect it deserves.
“In my opinion, it’s the coolest trophy in all of sports. So I think it’s deserving of all of the pageantry that is involved with it,” he said, and later added: “I drank some unusually expensive wine and some unusually exceptional bourbon out of it.”
This year’s Open Championship will see a record $17 million up for grabs, with the first prize up $100,000 on the $3 million Harman claimed in 2023. But he says that he’d be willing to compete for the Open Championship title even if there was no prize money at all on offer.
“Yeah, I would personally. I’m not sure everyone would, but I would,” he said. “Because some people care more about money than I do, I suppose. I play golf for me. Like I play golf to see how good I can get at golf. I play golf because I enjoy torturing myself with things that are really hard to do. That’s just me.
“Most times when I get done with a tournament, I couldn’t tell you within commas of how much that I made that week.”
Harman was famously not the most popular of winners, primarily given that local man Tommy Fleetwood, and fan favourites Rory McIlroy and Jon Rahm were among the main challengers, but he holds no grudges for the hostile atmosphere he faced at Hoylake.
“It doesn’t bother me,” he said. “I’m ready to take whatever in stride. I’m here to play the best golf that I possibly can. That’s my main focus.
“I’ve always loved the fans over here. I’ve spoken a bunch of times about how I find them the most knowledgeable fans of any that we play in front of.
“I kind of chalk last year up as more of an anomaly than anything else.”
