It was a display of tremendous resilience and dogged defiance. And no, I’m not talking about Brian Harman’s Open Championship win here. I’m honouring the gallant durability of the tent a colleague and myself were staying in on the 22-metre line of the pitch at the Hoylake rugby club. The thing was a marvel of the modern age.
After all that ruddy rain on Sunday, your drookit correspondent trudged despondently back to base camp fully expecting to be greeted by the chaotic sight of crumpled, twisted, flapping polyester sheets, guy ropes strewn in useless abandon and the kind of widespread, appalling squalor you’d get at the end of a drenched, mud-splattered Glastonbury Festival.
Instead, our billet for the week stood as majestically as the Taj Mahal. Despite the unrelenting torrents, not a drop of the wet stuff had penetrated the bolthole. Well, until fumble fingers here spilled a chipped mug of Chateau Lafite Rothschild in the tent’s vestibule as we celebrated a job well done.
In the wake of his Hoylake conquest, Harman revealed that he was looking forward to getting back to the sprawling acreage of his farm to try out his new tractor. He would have had a jolly old time at the rugby club yesterday morning as a tractor was brought in to haul out the caravans that had sagged into the quagmire. It was one of the most eye-opening scenes I’ve witnessed on a camp site since Barbara Windsor went, ahem, “ping” in that Carry On caper of yore.
It was a case of carry on regardless for Harman as he weathered the storm quite brilliantly on a soaking Sunday to become the champion golfer of the year. The 36-year-old was a low-key winner but he certainly hit the high notes with an exemplary display of calm and calculated golf that carried him to a mighty six-shot victory. He led by five after 36 holes, slept well on that lead, then cemented his five-shot lead on day three and slept well on it again.
That showed tremendous mental fortitude because holding such an advantage for that long, and trying to protect it, ain’t easy. Those playing catch up can throw caution to the wind and, if they come up short in their chase, get plaudits for giving it a good go. If you slip up from a such a front-running position of authority, however, there’s withering talk of capitulations and, dare we say it, choking.
Harman was No.1 in fairways hit, he missed just one putt inside 10 feet all week and he found just two bunkers over the course of 72 holes. It was a masterclass. Had Rory McIlroy, Jon Rahm, Tommy Fleetwood or any of the other stars produced a performance of such majesty, all and sundry would be cooing themselves hoarse.
And what if Harman’s story had been in any other sport? The plucky, unheralded campaigner going from underdog to top dog would probably be roared about from the rooftops. In golf, though, it can lead to shrugging indifference.
Driving back up the road yesterday, one sports bulletin on the car radio started with the women’s football World Cup, moved on to a bit about Wilfried Zaha leaving Crystal Palace and finished with a preview of the World Aquatics Championship. Harman’s Open win didn’t tickle the fancy. In the pursuit to capture hearts and minds, beyond the dedicated followers of the game, golf often muddles on in the margins.
Harman is not a star. And the softly spoken, unassuming American won’t mind that. He’s not a journeyman either, because his record and his pedigree is better than that somewhat disparaging label implies. What he is, of course, is a very, very good golfer who has put in the hard yards and has finally been rewarded with the ultimate prize.
Everybody who gets into golf, or indeed any sport, does it for fun. We may be hopeless at it but it’s a game and it’s good fun. When it becomes a job, though, then that initial enjoyment can easily dissipate. For Harman, the enjoyment is in the toil and the never-ending quest for improvement in a game of tiny margins.
“Someone once told me, ‘you should do the things that make you lose track of time’,” Harman said. He must read this column online? “And for me, a lot of times when I’m practicing hitting balls or putting when I’m at home, I lose track of time. That’s how I know I really enjoy it.”
Harman certainly enjoyed his day in the sun. Or the rain. The men’s Majors are now done and dusted for another year. We’ve had four in 16 weeks.
In a fevered programme, they get packed into the calendar in a way that resembles me trying to shove my sleeping bag back into a storage sack that seems wholly unfit for the purpose. It could be worse. On the women’s front, there are four Majors shoehorned into a gasping two-month spell.
For the men, there is now a wait of more than 260 days until the grand slam occasions resume. April’s Masters, of course, benefits from this prolonged sense of anticipation. The rest, though, could do with some more room to breathe.
After a week battering away at The Open coalface, meanwhile, I could do with a breather myself.
