There is no timetable when life’s lessons arrive.
For PGA Tour veteran Brian Harman, one of his guiding principles landed with force when he was 8 and messing around in the backyard with his brother. Shooting at various targets with a BB gun, times were good before Harman accidently ended the existence of a squirrel with one true shot.
Shortly thereafter, his father came out of the house and dropped some wisdom.
“Now you have to take care of it,” he said. “You don’t kill for fun.”
Harman got the message he carries to this day. He cleaned the animal and “we ate the squirrel.” He laughs now about that moment in the backyard but holds true to his heart the words his father spoke that day.
“It built a deep respect for animals,” Harman said. “What they provide. They are a renewable resource. Being able to know where your meat comes from is important to me, being able to take care of the animal once you’ve killed it shows immense respect to the animal.
“I am not a fan of people who kill for sport. I enjoy hunting but I also enjoy taking care of the animal after the fact and helping to feed my family with it.”
Whether in a tree stand, tracking through woods, casting a fishing line or on the first tee facing the best golfers in the world, hunting is in Harman’s DNA.
The singular pursuit that gets the ticker flowing, the solidarity of preparation, the sense of providing all resonate whether he has a bow, gun, rod or golf club in hand.
Heck, he asked his wife, Kelly, to marry him before going out to hunt turkeys, taping the engagement ring inside the pocket of her new camouflage pants. Guy marks his golf balls with dots that look like deer tracks.
He’s darn good with his weapons, too. The former Georgia Bulldog has won two titles and more than $16 million on the PGA Tour and regularly fills his multiple freezers with the fruits of his successful quests. While he gives away a lot of meat to friends and neighbors, if need be, his stock could last two years in the freezers.
Harman, who killed his first deer at age 12, bagged an 850-pound elk six months ago that yielded 300 pounds of meat, much of it still in his freezers. A regular companion of his on hunting trips is Patton Kizzire, so it made sense that in addition to their successful wild turkey shoots the two teamed to win the 2018 QBE Shootout.
His home on St. Simon’s Island on the Georgia coast is the perfect local for Harman and his pursuits. With the global COVID-19 epidemic shutting down his job on the golf course, the waters and forests remain.
“I’ve been eating nothing but wild game this whole time,” Harman said.
He is still hitting balls and playing golf three to four times a week. Hunting and fishing are regular activities, too. For now, Georgia’s shelter-in-place order allows Harman to play golf, hunt or fish.
“I’ve definitely thought about what would happen if the shelter at home orders became more stringent and I couldn’t play golf, couldn’t hunt,” Harman said. “We’ll participate with whatever the state deems is the safest way to combat this. But out in the woods is about as isolated and quarantined as you can get.”
And hunting and fishing benefit his golf career.
“When I’m hunting, that’s where I get most of my mental work for golf done. I’m always thinking about what I can do to get better,” Harman said. “And both take a lot of patience and both frustrate you to your wit’s end. Both can be extremely rewarding, but you fail way more than you succeed in hunting, and that’s the same way it is in golf. It’s a mind game in the woods and on the golf course, a chess match that challenges every time.”
And if he has to put the clubs, bows, guns and rods away, he’ll be just fine spending even more time sheltered at home with his wife, daughter, Cooper, 4, and son Walter, who turns 2 in July. But he can’t wait to get back out to the PGA Tour.
“I’ve told my wife that I don’t know if I could hunt or fish every single day but I could play golf every day if I had to,” Harman said. “I love golf. I like going out and hitting balls. It’s been kind of nice to go out and practice and hit balls because it’s enjoyable and not because I’m having to get ready for something.
“I’d love to be playing right now because I’m hitting it great, but I can wait until we can play when it’s safe. We will overcome this. Right now is about looking within and focusing on my family.”
And proving for them one successful hunting trip at a time.
[jwplayer kgtH58GT-vgFm21H3]
[lawrence-related id=778029338,777994302]