Open Championship 3rd Round Recap: Brian Harman Simply Will Not Go Away, Holds Commanding 5-Shot Lead Heading Into Sunday

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He began the day with a five-shot lead and he finished the day with a five-shot lead. It's not Brian Harman's chasers had hoped for, nor was it what Golf Twitter anticipated after playing his first two holes in 2 over par. 

But the plucky, 5'7" Georgia Bulldog played his final 15 holes in four under par to post a two-under 69 and regain firm control of the Open Championship. At 12 under for the Championship, he'll sleep on a five-shot lead for the second night in a row. The only differnce now are the men in his rearview mirror: Tommy Fleetwood, the Liverpool-area hometown favorite, could not summon a birdie after the second hole and sits even back at five under. Harman will be joined in the final group by Cameron Young, the runner-up at last year's Open at St. Andrews, whose five-under 66 has him 7 under total and five back of Harman. One shot further back is Jon Rahm, who shot his lowest-ever round in a major and matched the record for an Open at Hoylake with an eight-under 63. Also at five under are Viktor Hovland, Jason Day, Sepp Straka and Antoine Rozner. 

Harman's impressive play after the wobble ensures the final result tomorrow is more or less in his hands: if he shoots something under par, he is almost assured to lift the claret jug. There is the distinct possibility that the last two-plus hours of major championship golf in 2023 are all but a formality. The 36-year-old kicked it into gear and returned to the steady brand of play that's seen him win twice on the PGA Tour and be a mainstay on recent leaderboards. This also isn't the first time Harman's in this position—he held the 54-hole lead at the 2017 U.S. Open at Erin Hills only to shoot 72 and finish four shots behind winner Brooks Koepka. 

Harman has maintained all week that he learned from that experience. He's said he has an "active mind," often a handicap in a game that can paralyze you should you think about all that can happen. It's what's kept him from lifting a trophy on the PGA Tour for the last six years, as it surely hasn't been for a lack of chances. He entered this week as DataGolf's No. 31 player in the world, ahead of more household names like Adam Scott, Cameron Young, Tom Kim and Joaquin Niemann. 

Still, his name was nowhere near any headlines leading up to the tournament. That real estate was occupied by Scottie Scheffler, who came in on an historic run of form. (Scheffler, who said pre-tournament that his putting woes were more or less a media creation, sits dead last in the field in putting at -6.03 for the week. He's T63 at +4 for the week.) By Rory McIlroy, who won last week's Scottish Open in electric fashion and returned this week to a golf course he's won on before. By Fleetwood, who built up the hopes of the local crowds only for the putter to go ice cold on Saturday. 

This is now firmly Harman's tournament to lose—though, it should be said, both of his closest chasers possess the firepower to make it difficult. Young's had something of a down year after a fantastic rookie campaign that saw him finish runner-up five times, including at this tournament a year ago. And Rahm, before Scheffler surpassed him in most statistics, was the finest player on the planet from January through April. He'll likely need another 65-or-lower round to have a chance, but a five-win, two-major season is not out of the question for the Spaniard. 

"It doesn't happen often where you see those shots come out the way they're supposed to and put them in the spots you're supposed to," Rahm said. "You see everything the way it's supposed to happen unfold, and it's very unusual."

Rahm finished his round shortly before Harman began his, and you feared for the worst after an opening bogey. Another at the fourth shrunk his lead to two, but that's the closest it got all day. He bounced back with a birdie at the par-5 5th, added another at the 9th when his tee shot nestled to four feet, and made his longest putt of the day with a 21-footer at 12. He failed to birdie either of the par 5s coming in but his par at the last surely felt like one after he bailed out well left of the fairway, which is guarded by internal out-of-bounds down the right. Harman could only get as close at 266 yards away with his second and bailed out again with his fairway-wood third, leaving himself plenty of work to do to get in the house at 12 under. His chip checked up faster than he'd like but his eight-footer for par was true the whole way. 

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After the round, Harman refused to divulge his putting secret to NBC's Cara Banks. "Night before that? Uh-uh no." Asked if he planned to play patiently on Sunday, he said simply, "I'm going to hit every shot the best I can." 

Young is squarely in contention once again in his second career Open start. He left the course a touch frustrated after a missing a number of short putts, like a six-footer on 17, that could've drawn him closer to the leader. 

Rory McIlroy, who entered the week as the pre-tournament favorite, played his first five holes in 3 under but the rest in 1 over. At 3 under and nine shots back, his major drought will almost certainly reach its 10th year, as he'll have to wait until Augusta for another crack at No. 5. 

One fun side-plot to watch on Sunday is the Battle of the Fitzpatricks. Matt, the world No. 9 and U.S. Open Champion, fired a four-under 67 and sits at 2 under…two shots behind his younger brother, Alex, who's playing his first major championship this year. The former All-American at Wake Forest posted a 65, the second-best round of the day, and is currently T9 at 4 under.