What should be made of the 151st Open Championship leaderboard? It is one of the strangest of the year, that’s for sure. Seven shots separate first and fourth place. There are seven different countries represented in the top 10. Nobody atop the field is ranked in the top 10 in the Official World Golf Rankings, and only two of the 10 have won a major championship.
If you showed this leaderboard to a random golf fan, there is no chance they would be able to tell you that it was the 36-hole board at a major championship.
Let’s start at the top. Brian Harman leads Tommy Fleetwood by five (!) having gained nearly 15 strokes on the field through two rounds. That’s historic. To put this in perspective, Tiger Woods gained 7.3 per round when he won the 2000 U.S. Open by 15, 0.1 stroke per round worse than Harman has through 36 holes at Royal Liverpool. That’s the caliber of golf Harman is playing.
Of course, Woods did that across four consecutive days, and Harman is only at the halfway point, but that contextualizes exactly what his level of play has been thus far at Royal Liverpool.
“It has to do with the difficulty of golf courses,” explained Jordan Spieth. “If you have great control, you can still score. They’ve put pins in very difficult locations that, if you don’t have discipline, you can get in really tough spots within 20 feet of the hole. But if you’re the other side, 20 feet, you’re looking at making birdie, and that’s what [Harman has] done so well.”
It’s also meaningful that this course doesn’t disproportionately favor distance. You cannot just crush the ball off the tee, go find it and do it again. Hoylake is rewarding wisdom and golf shots. Jason Day, who’s T4 after 36 holes, said he has only hit one driver each day. “Trying to just stay to my plan and hopefully it works,” Day explained.
This is part of the reason why you’re see players like Min Woo Lee, Adrian Otaegui and Shubhankar Sharma beating stars like Scottie Scheffler, Brooks Koepka and Jon Rahm.
Harman, too, is not a long hitter. He ranks 100th in driving distance this week but eighth in strokes gained off the tee. His bogey-free 65 on Friday was the best score of the day by two strokes. He got beat by three golfers on Thursday and none on Friday. That’s how you build a five-stroke lead.
Does having a five-stroke lead on Tommy Fleetwood mean the tournament is over? History says, “Yes.” Over the last 40 years, eight of nine players to hold a 36-hole lead of five strokes or more at a major championship have eventually won. There have been 19 golfers to hold a lead of five strokes or more in Open history; 15 of those have eventually won, a clip of 79%.
Forget history. I say, “No.”
“[If] he continues to do that, it’s hard to make up eight shots having to birdie,” said Spieth of Harman, “But if the conditions get really tough and … he drops a couple shots, I mean, 36 holes is a long time.”
Is Harman going to continue to perform at a “Tiger at the 2000 U.S. Open” level? As someone said to me Friday, That seems … unsustainable. Throw in the fact that he’s gained eight of his strokes with the putter, and I tend to agree.
Fifteen holes at Hoylake played over par Friday. Fifteen! Harman is playing tremendous golf and certainly has his best chance ever to win a major championship, but emotionally and mentally, he will feel the toil that trying to wrestle an Open Championship golf course to the ground will take on him over the next two days.
“Just not trying to get too caught up in it,” Harman explained. “It’s just golf. When I held the 54-hole lead at the U.S. Open, I just probably thought about it too much, just didn’t focus on getting sleep and eating right. So, that would be my focus this weekend.”
Harman will be the focus of everyone beneath him, which means we get one of my favorite weekend templates at a major championship: Somebody trying to slam the door on their first major being chased by horses who have nothing to lose from pretty far back.
The players at even par or better fascinate me. Would it shock you if Viktor Hovland (E), Hideki Matsuyama (E), Rory McIlroy (-1), Max Homa (-1), Wyndham Clark (-1), Jordan Spieth (-2), Cameron Young (-2), Jason Day (-3) or Tommy Fleetwood (-5) shot 67 or better on Saturday in the third round? No, of course not. Would it surprise you if Harman shot something over par? No, of course not.
If Dustin Johnson had this lead, sure, it might be over. Brian Harman, though? It’s likely that he wins, but it’s hardly a done deal.
“I don’t think I have to do anything differently,” said McIlroy after shooting 71-70 across the first two days. “I’m hitting the ball well from tee to green. I’ve missed a couple of chances on the greens. The wind got me today. It’s hard sometimes in two minds whether to play the wind or not to play the wind.
“Nine back … but I don’t think there’s going to be a ton of players between me and the lead going into the weekend. Depends what the conditions are [Saturday]. Obviously depends what Brian does as well. Right now, it’s not quite out of my hands, but at the same time, I think if I can get to 3-, 4-, 5-under par [Saturday] going into Sunday, I’ll have a really good chance.”
Depends what Brian does, is exactly right. This golf course, because of the pot bunkers and internal out of bounds, has true variance. Two golfers (Justin Thomas and Sahith Theegala) improved their Thursday score by 11 strokes on Friday. Thursday’s co-leader, amateur Christo Lamprecht, shot 78 and nearly missed the cut. There’s been both a 3 and a 10 on the 18th hole.
There’s a lot of movement still to be had, and not only will nothing be decided until Sunday’s final round, it’s unlikely that anything will be decided until the leaders get to the final hole. Exactly what you want at a major.
Bring on the weekend.
Still Tommy’s to lose?
Fleetwood shot a gutsy 71 on a day when it could have gotten weird in the afternoon. You could almost see him clinging to second, trying everything he could to get into the final pairing. I don’t believe Harman is going to go full Martin Kaymer at the 2014 U.S. Open and torch the field, and because of that, the relief of not leading on Friday night might actually work in Fleetwood’s favor. This has felt like his week for a few days now, and it will again on Saturday.
“Oh, [the fans have] been insanely amazing,” said Fleetwood. “They really, really have. Loved every minute of playing in front of them, and I can’t thank everybody enough, can’t have asked for any more from anybody with all the support they’re giving me out here and everybody is talking about it.”
Ode to the 18th
It’s an awesome golf hole, and Andy Johnson (below) did a good job helping me understand exactly why I enjoy it so much. We saw Tyrrell Hatton hit two shots out of bounds off the tee (and his fifth shot miles left) before making 9. Brooks Koepka made a double bogey to nearly get inside the cut line. But then Cameron Smith made an eagle to get inside of it. You can make anything on No. 18. It rocks.
Scheffler (barely) makes the cut
It took a birdie at the last hole for Scheffler to play the weekend. He had not missed a cut since the 2022 St. Jude Championship nearly a year ago. You know, before last NFL season. Now? He’ll probably shoot 66-66 and finish inside the top five on the leaderboard to extend his streak of top 12 finishes from 19 to 20.
Normal sport things
A statement was released early on Friday about how the R&A raised the sand in Royal Liverpool’s bunkers one revet (one revet!). Brendan Porath wrote a good breakdown of what that means and why it matters, but the entire thing — an actual release about lifting sand probably 0.5 inches in the bunkers at a golf course — made me laugh pretty hard.
Strokes gained at majors
How unassailable is gaining nearly 7.5 strokes per round like Harman is doing? Your win probability at majors if you gain even six strokes per round is nearly 100%. (One crazy note here: Phil Mickelson gained 6.6 per round at the 2016 Open at Royal Troon … and lost to Henrik Stenson.)
Data Golf
J.T.’s pride
After shooting 82 on Thursday, Thomas followed it with a prideful 71 on Friday when his score did not matter to anyone but himself. We should not overstate the importance of this (for J.T. is still headed home after 36 holes), but I appreciate how much pride he has in the grind. This is almost certainly an unintended benefit of his relationship with Tiger, who may be the most prideful golfer of all time. And while J.T. gets a lot of flak (some of it deserved!) for his antics and his attitude at times, his respect of the game and his care for being a pro is unambiguous.
Rick Gehman is joined by Patrick McDonald as the entire Open field chases Brian Harman after his Friday 65. It’s storylines, scorecards and betting favorites. Follow & listen to The First Cut on Apple Podcasts and Spotify.