Brian Harman: Dominant and worthy Open champion so much more than a tractor driver and bow-and-arrow hunter

The 36-year-old from Georgia, who stands 5ft 7in tall, defied an underwhelming record of two PGA Tour titles in 10 years, the unrelenting rain on the Wirral and the best the likes of John Rahm, Rory McIlroy and Tommy Fleetwood could throw at him to win the 151st Open at Royal Liverpool.

He did so by six shots, one better than he started the day with. He moved to the top of the leaderboard with a birdie blitz on Friday morning and save for the briefest of moments around 4pm on Sunday when Rahm pulled to within three, never let anyone get close.

Harman’s dominant performance rendered the Sunday of the Open a damp squib, irrespective of the rain that poured across Hoylake all day, but take nothing away from the American’s control of the championship.

“You know, I've always had a self-belief that I could do something like this,” he said in his champion’s press conference.

"It's just when it takes so much time it's hard not to let your mind falter, like maybe I'm not winning again.

“I'm 36 years old. The game is getting younger. All these young guys coming out, hit it a mile, and they're all ready to win. Like when is it going to be my turn again.

“It's been hard to deal with. I think someone mentioned that I've had more top 10s than anyone since 2017, so that's a lot of times where you get done, you're like, dammit, man, I had that one; it just didn't happen for whatever reason.

“So to come out and put a performance like that together, from start to finish, with a lot of control...I don't know why this week, but I'm very thankful that it was this week.”

Any time he offered the chasing pack and a baying crowd hope, dropping two shots in the first five holes on both days, he instantly shut the door again, birdieing six and seven on Sunday and then 14 and 15 after dropping one on 13.

"After I made the second bogey yesterday, a guy, when I was passing him, he said, ‘Harman, you don't have the stones for this’” he said. “That helped a lot. It helped snap me back into I'm good enough to do this. I'm going to do this. I'm going to go through my process, and the next shot is going to be good.

“I really honestly didn't think about winning until I had the ball on the green on 18."

There were a lot of players who threatened to catch Harman. Rory McIlroy’s customary last-day surge started with three successive birdies from the third but fizzled out with a level-par back nine.

Rahm threatened but couldn’t sustain, nor could Fleetwood despite the partisan support. Tom Kim, Jason Day and the impressive Austrian Sepp Straka joined Rahm on seven under in a tie for second.

But the week belonged to Harman. “I bought a new tractor for my hunting place, so I'll be on the tractor mowing grass, so I'm excited about that,” laughed the Open champion.