"It helped snap me back" - Brian Harman reveals how boos from fans ignited his path to becoming The Open champion

It was overcast weather at the Royal Liverpool Golf Club, Hoylake when Brian Harman inspired the world with his maiden major win. He dominated the Open Championship since day one, to end his campaign with a margin of six strokes against tied runners-up.

Harman earned a whopping paycheck of $3 million and the Claret Jug, and also jumped to his career-best tenth rank in the Official World Golf Rankings.

After winning the tournament, he spoke with the media and mentioned how the crowd constantly wanted him to lose. As quoted by The Scotsman, he said:

"Yeah, I heard them. You had Fleetwood and Rory making a run. It's fine. Everybody has got their team they're rooting for. But, if they wanted me to not play well, they should have been really nice to me."

Brian Harman shared an incident from the third round of the Royal Liverpool Golf Club, revealing that someone from the crowd said that he could not win the Open and it helped him ignite his hunger to win the major. He said:

"After I made the second bogey yesterday, a guy said, ‘Harman, you don't have the stones for this’. 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."

Brian Harman and Tommy Fleetwood (via Getty Images)

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"The game is getting younger" - Brian Harman praises young golfers after his historic win at The Open

The Open Championship 2023 may have been won by 36-year-old Brian Harman but a lot of young golfers put on a sensational show in Hoylake. Be it Tom Kim, who continued playing despite a grade-1 tear in his ankle, Alex Fitzpatrick, who had a fantastic major debut, or Christo Lamprecht, who topped the points table after day 1, the young guns were highly impressive.

The newly crowned champion, Harman, praised the young talents and said (as quoted by The Guardian):

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

Harman won a tournament on the PGA Tour after almost five years. Speaking on his victory, he said that he always believed in himself but it was hard to keep himself convinced to work constantly. He said:

"You know, I've always had a self-belief that I could do something like this. 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."

Brian Harman sitting with the Claret Jug (via Getty Images)

He added that it was always hard to deal with a tournament loss. However, he added that it required a lot of control to put on a sensational performance altogether.

"It's been hard to deal with. [But] to come out and put a performance like that together, like start to finish, just had a lot of control. I don't know why it was this week, but I’m very thankful that it was," said Harman.

Interestingly, Brian Harman won the best paycheck in his career after winning the Open Championship 2023.