All the scores are settled at the 2023 Open Championship, and we’re here to reveal who thrived at Royal Liverpool and who failed to pass the audition. Let’s get to the week’s biggest winners and losers.
Winner: Brian Harman and the Great Wheel of Karma
Following Saturday’s round at the Open Championship, the diminutive American southpaw held a five-stroke lead, and short of a brief shaky stretch at the beginning of his third round, he’d appeared unflappable. Harman, the 26th-ranked player in the world, had waggled and scrambled and ridden a hot putter to the brink of a major championship.
And then on Sunday morning, the English skies opened up, and his big lead threatened to wash away. A bogey at the second. Drip, drip, drip. An errant drive into a gorse bush that led to a second bogey at the par-5 fifth. Drip, drip, drip. In front of him, charges by Rory McIlroy and Jon Rahm had energized the galleries. No one would have blamed Harman—whose previous best finish in a major was a tie for second at the 2017 U.S. Open—if he began to feel the proverbial tightening of the collar. One of the smallest players on tour was being stalked by giants.
Then, just as he had on moving day, the 36-year-old knuckled down. Bloodless back-to-back birdies at six and seven clawed back the dropped shots. Solid stress-free pars on the ensuing five holes kept him in front by five before a stumble at 13. Still, standing on the 14th tee, four clear of his nearest challenger, with the rest of the field struggling to hole a meaningful putt, it was difficult to imagine a scenario that didn’t involve Harman eventually drinking from the Claret Jug.
This is the point at which the golf writer begins her moral inventory. This is when the devil and the angel take their places on my shoulders.
Devil: “Collapse! You want him to collapse!”
Angel: “Stop it. He seems like a nice guy. He’s played great. Why would I wish for that?”
Devil: “Fuck ’em! Who cares about Brian Harman? Remember when Adam Scott bogeyed the last four holes to lose the Open Championship in 2012 to Ernie Els? That was hilarious!”
Angel: “That was excruciating! You can’t wish that on someone!”
Devil: “No one wants to read your story about Brian Harman winning in a runaway! Maybe he’ll get buried in a pot bunker, make a 10, and have a nervous breakdown on the 18th hole! Imagine the clicks!”
Angel: “That would be sort of cool …”
Fortunately, for the sake of my karmic well-being, there was never any real threat of a collapse. Usually, players with a big Sunday lead on the back nine of a major are looking for steady, risk-averse play. Harman’s round was tactically brilliant and exemplary. He carded dazzling birdies at 14 and 15 and eventually posted minus-13 for his tournament, six strokes better than the four men tied for second. Amid the driving rain and a fair number of catcalls from the English faithful, Harman dominated like prime Tiger Woods. He led or was close to the lead in every meaningful statistic, three-putted exactly zero times in 72 holes, and landed in only three of Royal Liverpool’s bazillion bunkers. He also made a mind-boggling 59 of 60 putts within 10 feet this week. Whether this is the beginning of a late-career run of brilliance or just an instance of a very fine, but not great, player experiencing the most astonishing four-day run of his life, we can safely agree that the right man won. Justice was served, and at least for today, the world is in Harman-y.
Loser: Rory McIlroy
Another major, another top 10, another spirited effort, but no laurel. I’m not even sure what to say about Rory at this point. As discussed in our tournament preview, everything seemed to point to this week as the end of his nine-year drought in major championships. He played well at Hoylake, especially over the weekend, when he shot 69 and 68 and made pulses race with three consecutive birdies on the front nine Sunday morning to temporarily pull into a tie for second.
But the charge fizzled as the putter once again went cold at the worst possible time, and he could only watch as Harman pulled away. I’m struggling to come up with an appropriate sports analogy for McIlroy’s particular purgatory—that of a player who won so much so early on that the remainder of his career seemed doomed to be a disappointment. John McEnroe won seven majors between 1979 and 1984 and then never won another before retiring in 1992. Dwight Gooden spent five years looking like he would rewrite the baseball record books before injuries and off-field issues derailed his career. But none of this seems to map precisely onto Rory’s predicament. It’s not a physical issue—he contends in or wins nearly every other tournament he enters. It doesn’t seem to be psychological either—it’s not like he’s out there choking leads away. Like a lot of things to do with golf, it mostly seems to come down to luck and happenstance. And yet, the greatest of the greats find some way to manhandle the fates en route to their signature victories: Think Jack Nicklaus at the ’86 Masters or Tiger at Augusta in 2019 or even Phil Mickelson at Kiawah Island in 2021.
Everyone knows Rory is one of the three best players of his generation, and everyone wants him to score the win that will vault him up the list of all-time greats. But it’s been nearly a decade now, and it has to be said: In life, and especially in golf, nothing is certain.
Winner: Tom Kim
Tom Kim did not win the Open Championship, but the 21-year-old looks to be about the surest bet imaginable to bag a major in the near future. During his first full year on tour, Kim has already won twice and finished in the top eight at the U.S. Open, and this week, he overcame an opening-round 74 to finish tied for second at minus-7. His 67 was tied for the lowest round carded on Sunday, and his finish tied him with Seve Ballesteros for the youngest player ever to finish in the top two at an Open Championship. Taken by itself, that represents quite an achievement for the budding Korean superstar, but it’s how he did it that should really raise eyebrows. Kim slipped and severely tore ligaments in his right ankle earlier in the week and had to use crutches and a wheelchair while not walking the course. Most golfers, rationally, would have withdrawn rather than put themselves through the crucible of walking 72 holes with a cast on, although we know of one who certainly wouldn’t have.
Kim plays a swaggering style of golf that Ballesteros himself would appreciate. With his combination of preternatural self-confidence, compelling personality, and evidently endless pain tolerance, he sure looks like men’s golf’s next global icon.
Call your broker and buy all the stock available.
Loser: The Bomb and Gouge Crowd
A few years back, all the talk about modern golf focused on distance. Advances in equipment coupled with the contemporary-era über-athlete made the equation simple: If you could hit it 380 yards off the tee, it almost didn’t matter where the ball went. You’d be so close to the hole in most instances that even a wayward shot would give you a better chance to score than those lame-os who were carrying it only 270. This strategy became known by the rather fascistic shorthand “bomb and gouge.” Big bombers have certainly made their presence felt in majors since that time. Brooks Koepka and Jon Rahm are both huge off the tee and have won repeatedly, although both also possess finesse in their short games. Bryson DeChambeau, the poster boy of the movement, famously bullied Winged Foot into submission at the 2020 U.S. Open while bulking up to the size of the Kool-Aid Man. But for one week, at least, the meek inherited the Open. Harman started off the tournament ranked 114th in distance off the tee, and if he improved on that position during his win, it wasn’t by much. Instead, Harman won the “old way,” which is to say he found fairways, hit greens in regulation, and made the hole look like it was the size of a sewer opening with his putter. Turns out it still works. As tournament courses grow longer and longer and the technology evolves to match it, we are far from done with pure-force golf as a movement. But for one week at Royal Liverpool, it felt like 1980 again.
Loser: The “Scottie Scheffler Is an Android” Conspiracy
Scheffler’s preposterous recent form—finishing tied for 12th or better in 19 straight events—has had some alarmists in the golf community concerned that he is no golfer at all, but instead a tournament-consuming product of AI. In fairness, the world’s no. 1 golfer is awfully straight off the tee. But whispers such as this took a blow this week, as Scheffler failed to deliver the Claret Jug to his alleged programmers and instead finished at a shrugging even par for the week. I think we can now report with palpable certitude that Scheffler is just a man like any other. Though he did shoot 67 on Sunday.
Winner: UGA Golf
There’s been no shortage of glory between the hedges these past couple of years, but consider this another plumb day for the Dawgs. Both Harman and T2 upstart Sepp Straka are alums, and Harman joins fellow major winners Bubba Watson and Patrick Reed, further embellishing the bona fides of one of the nation’s best golf programs. If the whole Kirby Smart three-peat thing falls apart, it’s important to know they’ll still have something to root for in Athens. This is something I monitor.
Loser: Suspense
As an American absorbing golf from the land of William Shakespeare and Agatha Christie, I confess I operate with the assumption that there will be a certain degree of suspense. I love the Open Championship because most of the time, something weird will happen. I’m still recovering from 2009, when Tom Watson, at 59 years old, yanked an 8-foot putt to win on the 18th. Or, obviously, Jean van de Velde in 1999 or the Duel in the Sun.
To quote Elaine Benes, “Give me something I can use.”
Winner: Tommy Fleetwood’s Hair
I picked Tommy Fleetwood to win. I expected him to win. I was more certain he would win after being tied for the Thursday lead than I am about my own birthright. He kept hanging around, making par saves, ready to charge. Seconds now from the under-par bonanza. And then, all at once, Fleetwood didn’t win.
I am OK. A little buffeted, but strong in my resolve. To the very rainy end, we had his hair. We had his hair.