Good for you, Brian. You are now the Champion Golfer of the Year, and as Cameron Smith was tearfully reminded last week, you’ve only got a year before you have to give that special trophy back. So drink up.
The Champion Golfer of the Year in 2023 produced a performance not as miraculous as Cam Smith’s last year but equally strong in the circumstances of today.
Harman has devised an entire strategy around what he can do best: win around the corners. It has led to 12-year career on the PGA Tour and wins at every level he’s played. And now, an Open championship victory.
Beneath that veneer of positivity, there must surely linger some doubt. What does the Belfast boy need to do to turn things round? It is obvious: he needs to putt better.
It was a week that every professional golfer hopes to have – one where you’re in control of all facets of your game during a four-day span on the game’s biggest stage where everything seems as easy as ever.
Travis Smyth, the 28-year-old Asian Tour pro from Kiama in New South Wales who played part of last year on LIV Golf, may not claim the claret jug this year, but he can always claim a Hoylake tournament first.
It wasn’t the flat patch of land or Hoylake’s calm conditions that defined the opening 18 holes of the year’s final men’s major, but, rather, the devilish bunkers (81 overall) that litter the place.
Leading into the tournament we were warned about all of Hoylake’s internal out-of-bounds and told by one top coach that the course’s new par 3 “could ruin somebody’s career”. But it was an old links standard that caused this disaster: the pot bunker.
Australian Golf Digest
