Just shy of a year after he won at Royal Liverpool, Brian Harman was in the car on his way to his farm in rural Georgia — where an excavator, feral hogs and fence-building awaited — when he gave me a call. This interview first appeared in the July-August issue of GOLF Magazine.
Dylan Dethier: When was the first time you knew you were really good at golf?
Brian Harman: I picked it up pretty quick. I started when I was 11. I played baseball and always had pretty good hand-eye coordination. I don’t remember exactly when I knew I was good. I just remember that when I found golf it was all I wanted to do.
DD: Who’d you first start playing with?
BH: There were some older kids in the neighborhood that liked to play, and they were nice enough to have me around. We’d all go hit balls and play golf. My parents are athletic people but didn’t really play. So my love of the game? I found that very organically on my own.
I was obsessed when I started. The course where I would go play was a really hard walking course, a lot of distance in between holes. So I’d go hit balls and literally wait until I saw a threesome that was gonna tee off, and I’d ask if I could play with ’em just so I could get a ride from green to tee. They wouldn’t let me get a cart until I was, like, 15 years old.
DD: You started with a pretty genuine love for the game. Has that relationship been tested, and how has it changed?
BH: Yeah, for sure. When I started, it was all I ever wanted to do. And then sometimes, especially early in my PGA Tour career, it was the last thing I wanted to do. Once it’s a job, parts of it are like any other job. There are parts of it that aren’t great. And if you play the Tour long enough, you’re gonna struggle at some point.
But, as I’ve gotten older, I’ve started to really figure out that golf is the thing I do that makes time go by fast. Like, I enjoy the work. It’s one of the few places where I can get lost doing something. It’s funny — it’s all most of us have ever done. We’ve dedicated our lives to it. As you get older, as you start to see you’re on the back half, I think it starts being a little more important to you.
DD: You went into last summer’s Open at Hoylake off a few good results in a row. Did you have a sense that something special might happen that week?
BH: It didn’t necessarily feel any different. I just knew that I was in a good place. I played pretty good in the Scottish and felt really comfortable. But, I mean, did I expect to win by six? No, I did not. I try not to have expectations going to a golf tournament. When I do, they never seem to pan out.
DD: Is there a single scene that stands out from the week?
BH: I think the thing that stands out the most was when I bogeyed 13 on Sunday. And look, a big deal has been made about a few hecklers over there, when really I had tons of people rooting for me. But the people rooting against me, I could feel them getting excited. Maybe the wheels were going to come off. Maybe they’d get their exciting finish. But on 14, I made a 30-footer and, like, I could almost hear myself celebrating inside. That was curtains. That was awesome.
DD: Is that what you’re like as a competitor? When you’re playing a money game at home, say, are you talking s—?
BH: I don’t play a lot of money games at home. A lot of the work that I do at home is really just competition with myself. All the s— talk is usually in my head. And I will say the most heinous s— in my head that you’ve ever heard. But I usually don’t say it to other people, because, when you do, it’s like a ticking time bomb. You’re gonna have to eat those words eventually.
So I internalize it. And I do believe in myself as much as I can, but any sort of outside factors that I can use to motivate myself, I certainly use ’em.
DD: How has life changed since then? What’s it like being a major champion versus not being one?
BH: Well, you certainly get stopped at the grocery store more often than you did before. [Laughs.] It’s just there are more commitments. For me, I’ve always been a seat-of-my-pants guy. No set schedule. But I’ve had to get really organized with my time so I can get everything done that I need to. So I guess that’s a change.
DD: I know satisfaction is tough to find in golf, but does winning a major and checking that box give you some sense of career fulfillment?
BH: I think it certainly gives you a sense of belonging. Now I know what I’m capable of. That can go one of two ways. I’m hoping it catapults me to much more success and doesn’t make me crazy with expectations. But I’m gonna try to save the reflecting until I’m done with golf. As an athlete,
I don’t think you can foresee when it’s coming to an end. But the game is getting younger, bigger and stronger, and, y’know, I’m 5-foot-7, 160 pounds. I’m 37 years old. I don’t know how much time I have in the game, so I’m just trying to grab every little bit that I can.
DD: What’s your perfect day away from the game?
BH: Well, I’ve got, like, 20 perfect days away from golf. Like yesterday: I’ve got a little 24-foot inshore boat, put it in the water. I’ve got my whole family — my three kids, my wife and I, friends of ours with their kids — we went to a beach you can really only get to by boat. And we sat out there all day, saw some other friends who brought their boats — that’s about as good as it gets. But then you think about bugle elk hunting in September in the mountains of Colorado — that’s kind of a perfect day. A really good turkey hunt at my farm — that’s a perfect day. So it’s hard to nail down just one.
DD: Do you have goals for the rest of the season? For the rest of your career?
BH: It’s mostly a competition with myself. I want to see how good I can get. I want to see how many more times I can get uncomfortably nervous. I want to see how many more chances I can get at big golf tournaments, because that’s what we play for. Have a chance to win a big golf tournament — that’s the drug for me.
