Attention was paid to Dustin Johnson, who was going for his fourth straight win; and Jon Rahm, the rookie sensation; and Ryder Cup hero Patrick Reed, the third-round leader; and the capital L Lefty, Phil Mickelson, who had never won in North Carolina.
Not much attention was paid to little lefthander Brian Harman—until he gave everyone no choice.
“Well, I would be lying if I didn’t say I had a little bit of a chip on my shoulder,” Harman said after he made a wild, nearly 30-foot birdie putt on the last hole to win by one. He screamed and connected on a high-five with his much-taller caddie Scott Tway as the crowd roared and the enormity of his putt hit home. Dustin Johnson and Pat Perez were out; Harman had won it.
Harman is 5 feet, 7 inches tall, and his tee shots don’t exactly scrape the bottom of the sun. He is steady—he was 32nd in FedExCup standings, and moves to 9th—but other than his only other TOUR win at the 2014 John Deere Classic, he hadn’t often been spectacular. When he first saw Eagle Point a few weeks ago on a reconnaissance trip with Patton Kizzire, Harris English and Hudson Swafford, Harman wasn’t sure the place was for guys like him.
“I actually thought like, man, this is a real bomber’s paradise—18 and a couple of the par 5s on the front,” Harman said. “Like if you can carry like, that magic number seems to be like 290, 300 yards, if you can carry it, kind of catches the downslope and runs down there a little bit.”
Harman would have to be precise, limit his mistakes, and take advantage of his opportunities. He averaged 284.1 yards off the tee, which placed him a respectable 40th in that category, and hit fairways and greens. He putted better than average. (He was 17th in strokes gained: putting.) He hung around. He said his most important round may have come Friday, when in whipping winds he not only refused to shoot himself out of the tournament, he carded a 3-under 69.
Although they hadn’t first planned to be here, Harman’s wife Kelly and their daughter Cooper Marie came up from their home in St. Simons Island, Georgia. Cooper Marie will walk soon, and Kelly said Brian has been on edge about potentially missing her first steps. As it turned out, it was Kelly and Cooper Marie who got to watch Brian take the biggest step.
“It’s very hard to stay patient because you know what it feels like to win, you know what it takes,” Harman said after his raucous 172nd TOUR start. “You feel like you’re capable of it but it just doesn’t happen. And then it doesn’t happen again and it doesn’t happen again, and then that’s where the doubt starts to creep in. So this one feels very good.”
