Brian Harman wins The Open by six shots as American brushes off harsh chants

Brian Harman has secured the first major of his career with a dominating win at The Open, holding off the likes of Sepp Straka, Tom Kim, Jason Day and Rory McIlroy. This year’s Open Championships were always going to offer challenging conditions for all players with strong winds and overcast weather forecast for the weekend.

Harman, who is making a late push for the 2023 American Ryder Cup team, started the week off strong with a round of 67 to put him one off the lead. Tommy Fleetwood looked to be in contention after the first round as he was part of the three-man group topping the leaderboard.

But Friday was where Harman put daylight between himself and the rest of the field. The Georgia Bulldog wracked up four consecutive birdies from the second to the fifth on a day where others were struggling to find decent scores.

And the American finished his round with a mightily impressive eagle on 18 to put him 10-under for the tournament. Moving Day on Saturday saw Harman slip up early on, giving the chasing pack hope of bringing the leader back to their sights. Going up against Fleetwood also meant that Harman was far from the crowd favourite and he complained of hearing some ‘unrepeatable’ chants aimed at him.

But the 36-year-old recovered expertly to finish the day two-under par, giving himself a five-shot lead heading into the final round. Only eight players over the last four decades have led by more shots than that across all four majors.

History was also on his side as only six players have led by five or more shots after 54 holes and gone on to lose the tournament. But much like Saturday, Harman had a slow start with conditions even worse due to the rain on the Royal Liverpool course.

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He was two-over for the day after five holes with his lead reduced to just three shots. However, Harman was able to bounce back immediately with back-to-back birdies on holes six and seven.

With others struggling to find any momentum to climb further up the leaderboard, all Harman had to do on the back nine was navigate the final few holes without any major mistakes. A hiccup on the tricky 13th was then followed with two more birdies to all but ease any remaining pressure that was on his shoulders.

His demeanour failed to change as he walked up towards the green on the 18th hole until the applause began with Harman raising his hat to acknowledge the support. One more shot out the bunker was needed to be navigated, but no issues as he splashed it to within 10 feet with Harman letting out a huge sigh of relief.

And he gave out a huge fist pump when he dropped his par putt into the cup, leading to huge roars from the stands.

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