Whether fans of some of the other players liked it or not, the Open Championship delivered what it always does when Brian Harman won the 151st edition of the world’s oldest – and best – major championship at Royal Liverpool on Sunday by six strokes.
The result might have been disappointing to Tommy Fleetwood fans – or just people opposed to hunting – but it was a masterclass which left the world’s best, and the best LIV Golf could offer, in his wake. With just six bogeys in a week where 13-under won by six, and level-par was good enough for a share of 23rd, bogeys were clearly not in short supply.
That Harman made three of his six bogeys in the final round alone was testimony to the extent to which he dominated a field in which the runners-up were rising Korean Star Tom Kim, the Austrian Sepp Straka who looks a Ryder Cup certainty now, and two former world number ones in Jason Day of Australia and Spaniard Jon Rahm. Harman still carded a one-under-par 70 in the final round during which anything was brighter than the grey, rainy weather.
If Fleetwood fans were disappointed, Rory McIlroy devotees were doubly so. After the Northern Irishman who won the Scottish Open last week rifled in three birdies in a row from the third to the fifth, an unusually boorish Open crowd sensed the chance of someone stopping the interloper Harman from running off with ‘their’ championship. But two birdies and two bogeys on the homeward nine left McIlroy in a share of sixth, seven strokes behind Harman, with Argentine Emiliano Grillo, Shubankar Sharma of India, and American Cameron Young.
Every single one of those who were left trailing by first-time major winner Harman looks likely to win a major in the future.
One man further down the leaderboard who has already tasted some potion or another – mampoer perhaps? – from the Claret Jug was 2010 champion Louis Oosthuizen, who was South Africa’s leading player at level-par after a closing two-under-par 69 gave him a share of 23rd.
Christiaan Bezuidenhout (above) had a Sunday 72, one-over, to finish on three-over for the championship in a share of 49th. Thriston Lawrence, the South African Open champion, started well but faded to 11-over for the championship with a closing eight-over 79 seeing him to slip to a share of 74th.
In a share of 74th too was amateur Christo Lamprecht (above), the lanky Amateur champion closing with a three-over 74 to secure the Silver Medal as the only amateur to make the cut. That he did that was an incredible achievement which made him the first South African to win the Silver Medal. There will be more honours for the world’s number-three ranked amateur.
