Brian Harman: 'I can't imagine being Rory, he has trouble going out to eat somewhere'

Last year's champion golfer is aiming to back up last year's fairytale success at the Open.

OLD FRIENDS: Darren Clarke speaks to Rory McIlroy on the driving range ahead of The Open Championship at Royal Troon. Pic: Steve Welsh/PA Wire.

There is always a more exclusive club. No matter how high you go in golf, or in life, there is always a red rope dangling loosely but definitively and defiantly as you peer beyond it to an out-of-bounds domain.

Fewer than 90 men have won an Open Championship since Willie Park Snr triumphed at the inaugural event at Prestwick Golf Club in 1860. The list of multiple winners runs to just 27. The number of players who have been able to retain the claret jug goes no further than 16.

Seven of those to go back-to-back did it before the Great War. That leaves nine in over a century since who have been able to extend their reign as ‘champion golfer’ an extra 12 months. Padraig Harrington, at Royal Birkdale in 2008, was the last of them.

Harrington was out practising on the course on Monday with Shane Lowry and amateur qualifier Liam Nolan when current holder Brian Harman visited the media centre and voiced his hopes of reclaiming a prize he had handed back to the R&A just hours earlier.

The American shared his thoughts on what had been a great year with the “coolest trophy in all of sports”, of the mentality change and the change in perspective that comes with being a major champion, and whether that brings extra pressure with it this week.

“No, it doesn't,” he explained a year on from that unexpected success in Hoylake. “I thought 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, take care of what I can do, then I'll give myself the best opportunity to have another chance.” Absorbing a win like his can be a job in itself.

Harman’s thoughts soon after he lifted the jug drifted to his 40-acre farm in Savannah, Georgia and his four-wheeler. It was there during the cold winter snap when it dawned on him just how cool it was to be the Open champ.

“As golfers, we spend so much time playing in front of people. I think a lot of us kind of crave going to a place where there's no one watching, there's nothing. You're just there. I don't know if that makes sense or not.” 

This seclusion contrasted with the abuse the American was subjected to over a weekend where local favourite Tommy Fleetwood was among the pursuers kept at bay before finally signing for a six-shot victory.

Harman revealed later that one ‘fan’ gave him such stick that he had to have him ejected having heckled him as he pulled the putter back for a three-foot par putt on the 12th but he was happy to class that experience as an “anomaly” before his defence.

He returns to the Open happy with his stats in general. His ball striking feels as good as it has even been. If he could finesse his putting stats then he feels he might be in business again after a year with three top tens but no wins and no major surges.

The last three weeks have been okay, a tie for ninth at the Travelers Championship sandwiched by ties for 21st at the US Open and the Genesis Scottish Open, but the truth is that Harman arrived here with little fanfare let alone fervour.

Robert McIntyre’s dramatic win at the Renaissance Club on Sunday on Scotland’s far, east coast has focused local minds on the man from Oban, and that’s not forgetting the ceaseless attention paid to all the usual suspects.

The 2023 Open Champion Brian Harman of the United States gestures during a press conference at the media tent for the British Open Golf Championships at Royal Troon. Pic: AP Photo/Peter Morrison

Can Scottie Scheffler frank a stunning year with a second major in 2024? Is Bryson DeChambeau built to conquer a links? Will Rory McIlroy finally exorcize his decade-long demons so soon after his crushing disappointment at Pinehurst?

The Holywood man is due to speak to the media on Tuesday, his US Open failure late on that Sunday having only heightened the level of attention and debate swirling around him. Harman will never have that and he wouldn’t want it.

“It's all perspective, right? You can only experience it through your own experience.

“I can't imagine being Rory. Rory would have trouble going out to eat somewhere. Yeah, that's a part of this gig that's probably been the hardest adjustment is not having enough of your own time, I guess you could say, to where it's hard to escape it sometimes.

“That's why I think, like, my farm and being out on the boat and stuff like that are the places that we crave because it's the place where you get to escape all of it, and you just get to be by yourself for a little while.” 

Pull off an unlikely and rare two-for this week and Harman would surely accept whatever madness comes with it. It goes without saying McIlroy would be only too glad to shake on the same pact.