'I Hated It' - Open Champion Brian Harman Reveals Complete U-Turn On Links Golf Ahead Of Title Defence At Royal Troon
The 2023 Claret Jug winner dominated the Major at Royal Liverpool, but he has admitted he was far from successful on links courses earlier in his career
![Brian Harman celebrates after the winning putt dropped at The Open Championship in 2023](https://cdn.mos.cms.futurecdn.net/YB2YXMaxmxRaZPJY2kQ8vJ-415-80.jpg)
With some exceptions, the PGA Tour is known for tournaments that predominantly take place at parkland courses, so it’s little wonder that when The Open comes around, many of its players find the links courses the Major is famous for a shock to the system.
One of those players is Brian Harman, despite his dominance of the 2023 tournament at Royal Liverpool to eventually win by six shots.
Even though Harman showed considerable mastery of both the course and appalling conditions at last July’s event, he explained to the media via video link-up that it wasn’t always the case.
The American said: "The first time I played links golf I hated it - it ate me to pieces. I kept trying to hit lob wedges around the greens and the weather was bad. I got whipped, lost all of my matches."
That was when Harman was an amateur at the 2006 Palmer Cup, which took place at Prestwick Golf Club. It was an unhappy experience for the Americans against the Europeans in general, with the visitors being thumped 19.5 to 4.5, and Harman found it particularly tricky, losing all four of his matches.
Eight years later, he made his Open debut at the scene of his 2023 triumph, where he finished T26. However, despite a run of failures at the Major in the years that followed, he admitted during that time he learned to embrace the unique challenge of links courses.
Brian Harman made his debut at The Open in 2014
He said: "I had a stretch where I missed four cuts in a row at The Open and just couldn't quite get it figured out but I knew that I really enjoyed the golf even when I wasn't playing great. It's a thinking-man's game. You have to be able to hit every single type of golf shot.”
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Harman also thinks the PGA Tour could benefit from a wider variety of courses. He continued: "There are lots of different ways to be successful and that’s something that’s lacking in our game week to week and I wish we had a little bit more of it. It's refreshing to play hard golf that's not just a one-stop shop."
Harman’s Open win propelled him into the world’s top 10 for the first time in his career, and he has yet to relinquish that position. That has been helped by some excellent form including four more top 10 finishes, with a T2 at The Players Championship the most notable.
Brian Harman won The Open at a canter at Royal Liverpool
There have been setbacks along the way, though, including finishing with a bogey-double bogey to take the gloss off his first round at last month’s RBC Heritage.
After that, he gave a famously succinct interview that quickly went viral. Two weeks on, Harman has had time to reflect on it, and admitted he has regrets over his approach to it.
“I don’t care to be that way,” he said. “I don’t like coming off as curt or disrespectful. Everyone has got a job to do. I hate that it came off that way.
“As far as the way I was feeling, it’s just as raw as it gets. I don’t want to come off as ungrateful for what I get to do. I love what I do. It’s the only thing that I could do every day.”
Harman begins the defence of his Open title at Royal Troon on 18 July.
Mike has over 25 years of experience in journalism, including writing on a range of sports throughout that time, such as golf, football and cricket. Now a freelance staff writer for Golf Monthly, he is dedicated to covering the game's most newsworthy stories.
He has written hundreds of articles on the game, from features offering insights into how members of the public can play some of the world's most revered courses, to breaking news stories affecting everything from the PGA Tour and LIV Golf to developmental Tours and the amateur game.
Mike grew up in East Yorkshire and began his career in journalism in 1997. He then moved to London in 2003 as his career flourished, and nowadays resides in New Brunswick, Canada, where he and his wife raise their young family less than a mile from his local course.
Kevin Cook’s acclaimed 2007 biography, Tommy’s Honour, about golf’s founding father and son, remains one of his all-time favourite sports books.
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