“He’s a very tough, experienced character,” said Harrington, the two-time Open champion, of Harman. “He is not one to back out when he is ahead.”
“He can’t be chased with his lead of six strokes,” said John Rahm, the 2023 Masters champion. “He won’t slow down.”
And yet, before Sunday’s victory, Harman was practically a nobody. Although he’s had Top 10 finishes in 50 tournaments since he turned pro in 2009, he only has two wins before the Open—the 2014 John Deere Classic and the 2017 Wells Fargo.
Then Harman made a big bang of sorts when he finished second four shots behind multi-titled Bruce Keopka in the 2017 US Open in Erin Hills, Wisconsin, jumping from No. 26 to No. 10 in the world rankings.
But Harman would struggle again.
He missed the cut this year in the Masters and the PGA, halting the slump somewhat by finishing a modest tie for 43rd in the 2023 US Open.
Still, it delights him that his perseverance had given him $29 million in total earnings. And his purse from his six-shot win on Sunday was a whopping $3 million.
“I’ve always had a self-belief that I could do something like this,” said Harman, whose 13-under total dusted off four pursuers (Straka, Day, Kim and Rahm) who all eventually tied for second at 7-under at Royal Liverpool in Hoylake, England.
Harman, a clean-shaven, 5-foot-7 American, from Savannah, Georgia, stunned the field with birdies from miles away to keep his hottest chasers at bay, bundling his birdies in back-to-back fashion: 14 feet on 6 and 24 feet on 7.
He sank a scorching, downhill birdie from 40 feet on 15 after a blistering birdie on 14 for a massive six-shot margin that all but wrapped up the most revered major with three holes left to play.
“I’m 36 years old,” said Harman, who closed out with a steady one-under 70 and was never seriously threatened to become only the third lefty to win a Slam after Phil Mickelson and Mike Weir.
“The game is getting younger. These guys can hit it a mile. They are all ready to win.” He was ready to win, too—aided by a big heart that never skipped a beat all four days.