PORTRUSH, NORTHERN IRELAND | U.S. Ryder Cup captain Keegan Bradley had finished his second round at the Open Championship, having played his way into contention with a Friday 67, when the subject inevitably turned to whether he will be a playing captain at Bethpage Black in September.
Bradley gave his well-practiced answers without giving away the plan while deftly directing attention to the top of the leaderboard at Royal Portrush, where Brian Harman’s bogey-free 65 had pushed him into the lead with more than half the field still to complete its second round.
The will-he-or-won’t-he question that will follow Bradley until there is a decision is likely to be determined as much by what other players do – Harman being one of those – as by what Bradley does.
Harman, whose on-course doggedness rivals his passion for hunting and fishing, sits 12th on the American points list at the moment and has played himself into position to answer one of Bradley’s lingering questions.
“It’s really such a different experience for me to look at a leaderboard now because I look up there and I’m like, Brian is playing good, that’s awesome,” Bradley said.
Harman won the Valero Texas Open earlier this year but has just two finishes inside the top 40 since then so completing what he has started at Royal Portrush could finalize his fittings for the American team uniforms.
His focus is, understandably, on the coming weekend which could resolve the Ryder Cup question. It’s the familiar equation players often cite – play well and everything else will fall into place.
It was two years ago that Harman won the Open Championship at Hoylake and his stress-free second round fired up the memory machine. Portrush is not a place where length is essential which helps Harman, who ranks 159th in driving distance on the PGA Tour.
Friday was the kind of day to get Portrush, sun-kissed in the morning with barely enough breeze to matter. It was bouncy and as benign as a place like Portrush could be until the rain showers returned mid-afternoon.
There is an art to playing links golf, one Harman didn’t initially understand, and he has become more confident and competent with it through the years.
Friday was the kind of day to get Portrush, sun-kissed in the morning with barely enough breeze to matter. It was bouncy and as benign as a place like Portrush could be until the rain showers returned mid-afternoon.
One swing can still change a day or a week as Justin Rose found out when he hung his tee shot to the right on the 11th hole, lost it in a patch of Irish jungle and made a triple bogey that kept him from being in serious contention through two days.
Portrush was, however, vulnerable to birdies and Harman went about his business of playing from spot to spot, almost demystifying the place.
“I love the golf over here. It suits me,” Harman said. “Distance, of course, matters over here, but it doesn’t matter as much as maybe some other tournaments, and it doesn’t matter because the ground is so firm that the ball rolls.
“There’s just a million different ways to play over here whereas at some other majors you get kind of stuck into this, well, I’m going to swing as hard as I can off this tee ball and try to hit this 7-iron as high as I possibly can and hope it stops.”
It doesn’t make links golf a finesse game but it adds color to the process. Artistry and imagination are essential because eventually, no matter how precise a player may be, an unexpected bounce or a quirky stance forces players to accept and adapt.
It did not come naturally to Harman, who played his first links golf as a member of the American Palmer Cup team that got walloped by the European team at Prestwick in 2006.
“I feel really comfortable over here. I’m comfortable driving it. I don’t know. They’re very different golf courses, but the golf is similar.” – Brian Harman, comparing Portrush and Hoylake
“I didn’t take to it. I played four matches, went 0-4, and I don’t think I made it past like No. 14. I got worn out,” Harman said, citing his insistence on trying to use his 60-degree wedge on pitch shots around every green.
When he was the last player into the field at the 2014 Open Championship at Hoylake by virtue of his victory at the John Deere Classic, Harman spent part of the trip to England wondering if it was worth the effort. Such were the scars left by Prestwick.
Instead, Harman found himself embracing links golf and the stingers he could hit that would run the length of a football field. Rather than push back against that style, Harman leaned into it.
Nine years later, he won at Hoylake and he’s in position to contend again.
“I feel really comfortable over here. I’m comfortable driving it. I don’t know. They’re very different golf courses, but the golf is similar,” Harman said, comparing Portrush and Hoylake.
“You’ve got to be able to flight your golf ball. You’ve got to know how far everything’s going. Then you can’t get frustrated. Like you’re going to get bad breaks, you’re going to end up in funny spots where it doesn’t seem fair, and you just have to kind of outlast that stuff.”
“I didn’t realise that everyone was so upset about it. It’s a hill I’ll die on, and I have no – I’ll sleep like a baby at night.” – Brian Harman, on his zest for hunting
Harman’s dominating six-stroke victory two years ago earned him the “Butcher of Hoylake” nickname because of the media’s fascination with hunting exploits. It offended some and it initially confused Harman, whose Georgia roots run deep in the outdoors culture.
“I didn’t realise that everyone was so upset about it. It’s a hill I’ll die on, and I have no – I’ll sleep like a baby at night,” Harman said.
If he could only find a really good hunting streak in Portrush. When a reporter asked Harman if he had found one, Harman said no and asked the reporter if he could recommend a place.
“I was hoping you might tell me,” the questioner responded.
It’s one answer Harman does not yet have but one more answer captain Keegan is closer to having.