HOYLAKE, England — Brian Harman said Friday you don’t get to pick your nickname, but he approved of a British tabloid tabbing him “The Butcher of Hoylake.”
“I like that one better than the Harmanator,” said Harman, who enjoys hunting for animals in his spare time. “That made me chuckle. Someone texted me that yesterday. That’s funny.”
On Saturday, Harman, 36, continued to carve up Royal Liverpool, signing for 2-under 69 to maintain a five-stroke lead over Cameron Young heading into the final round of the 151st British Open.
Harman overcame a shaky start, making bogeys at the first and fourth hole. Just like that, his five-stroke overnight lead was trimmed to two strokes over Jon Rahm, who shot a bogey-free 63. But Harman bounced back with birdies at the fifth and ninth to return to double-figures under par and shoot even-par 35 on the opening nine.
Brian Harman's 5-shot lead is the largest through 54 holes at The Open by an American since Tiger Woods in 2000 (6 shots).
— Justin Ray (@JustinRayGolf) July 22, 2023
“It would have been really easy to let the wheels start spinning and really kind of let it get out of control, but I just kind of doubled down on my routine and knew I was hitting it well, even though I hadn’t hit any good shots yet,” he said. “Really proud of the way that I hung in there.”
He continued hunting for birdies, sticking his approach at the par-4 12th to 5 feet and rolled in the birdie putt. Harman complained that his TaylorMade Daddy Longlegs putter was misbehaving not long ago and he considered benching it, but it has been more friend than foe — he’s 44-for-44 from inside 10 feet this week. He drained a 20-foot birdie putt at the par-3 13th and finished with five straight pars to card a 2-under 69 and a 54-hole total of 12-under 201.
Harman enjoyed a celebrated junior and amateur career, including playing on a winning U.S. Walker Cup team, and has won twice on the PGA Tour, but when asked to name his biggest achievement in the game, he noted that he has qualified for the FedEx Cup playoffs the last 12 straight years, an accomplishment achieved by only eight other players. (Harman is one of five on track to make it again.) It speaks to his consistency, but also to the fact that he has never really won any of the biggest events in the game. He slept on a 54-hole lead at a major once before at the 2017 U.S. Open at Erin Hills, but he didn’t have a five-stroke lead that time. This is unchartered territory.
Open Championship 2023: Leaderboard, tee times, hole-by-hole
“You’d be foolish not to envision, and I’ve thought about winning majors for my whole entire life. It’s the whole reason I work as hard as I do and why I practice as much as I do and why I sacrifice as much as I do,” he said. “Tomorrow if that’s going to come to fruition for me, it has to be all about the golf. It has to be execution and just staying in the moment.”
Will the butcher’s blade run dull by the end of the championship?
“I feel like he’s not someone to back down,” Young, his closest pursuer, said. “With the lead he has right now, it’s not necessarily going to be up to me tomorrow. It’s just really time for me to focus on myself and see where that gets me.”
Harman is the 12th player in the last 40 years to hold a 54-hole lead of five strokes or more in a major championship; the leader has converted to victory nine times in the previous 11 attempts. NBC’s Curt Byrum noted Harman showed Saturday he has the mental toughness to stand up to whatever adversity he may face in the final round.
“Today may have been as big a hurdle as tomorrow might be. As hard as it is going to be for him with the expectations and the big lead to go on and win,” he said, “I think he’s going to be really tough to catch.”
Here are four more things to know about the third round of the British Open.