Players Championship

TPC Sawgrass (Stadium Course)



    Is it over?

    British Open 2023: There’s only a 17-percent chance Brian Harman blows his 36-hole lead, according to history

    1560360263

    Ross Kinnaird

    July 21, 2023

    HOYLAKE, England — Brian Harman, please don't read this—it will make you too complacent. And if you're someone like Tommy Fleetwood or Sepp Straka or Min Woo Lee or Shubhankar Sharma trying to catch Brian Harman … well, you might not want to read this either, for fear of feeling utterly hopeless.

    The key fact here is that after a brilliant opening 36 holes that saw him finish at 10 under, and an afternoon in which nobody could make a true run up the leaderboard, Harman now holds a five-shot lead over his nearest competition, Tommy Fleetwood.

    That lead, five shots, passes a rare threshold in major championships that takes it from "uncommon" to "historic." In the history of all four majors, with the caveat that we're only counting when they've been contested over 72 holes (starting in 1892 at the Open, and in 1958 at the PGA Championship), only 12 players have ever held a 36-hole lead of exactly five shots. Ten of those players have won. Here's the short list of winners:

    Scottie Scheffler, 2022 Masters
    Jordan Spieth, 2015 Masters
    Louis Oosthuizen, 2010 Open Championship
    Nick Price, 1994 PGA Championship
    Raymond Floyd, 1976 Masters
    Jack Nicklaus, 1975 Masters
    Gary Player, 1974 Open Championship
    Herman Keiser, 1946 Masters
    James Braid, 1908 Open Championship
    Willie Anderson, 1903 U.S. Open

    The only two players to blow a five-shot lead are Bobby Clampett in 1982, who shot 78-77 over the weekend as Tom Watson won the Open Championship, and Henry Cooper at the 1936 Masters (the third Masters ever), whose final-round 76 handed Horton Smith his second win at Augusta.

    That's the statistical good news for Harman. The bad news is that if he had a six-shot lead, he would rest comfortably in the knowledge that at least in the last 100 years, no player has ever blown a 36-hole lead that large in a major. Here are the five winners that meet the criteria of leading by six shots or more:

    Brooks Koepka, 2019 PGA Championship: 7 shots
    Martin Kaymer, 2014 U.S. Open: 6 shots
    Rory McIlroy, 2011 U.S. Open: 6 shots
    Tiger Woods, 2000 U.S. Open: 6 shots
    Henry Cotton, 1934 Open Championship: 9 shots

    That said, there have been two instances of a blown 36-hole lead of six shots, and they happened at this very tournament. It's just that they happened a very, very long time ago. Golf was, to put it mildly, significantly weirder and more volatile in those days. Nevertheless, here are the two men who got the job done.

    Abe Mitchell, 1920 Open Championship: six-shot lead lost with 84-76, George Duncan wins
    Sandy Herd, 1895 Open Championship: six-shot lead lost with 82-85, J.H. Taylor wins

    (The irony here is that although the six-shot 36-hole lead has been safe for a full century, that same lead after 54 holes isn't quite as certain—just ask Greg Norman.)

    But if Harman might bemoan that he didn't have that extra shot, taking him from an 83 percent chance of victory to virtual certainty, he can be extremely grateful that Fleetwood didn't reduce the lead to four shots. At that point, historically, things get extremely uncomfortable: In the 29 instances where a player led by exactly four shots after 36 holes, only 11 of them won, for a winning percentage of 37.93 percent. In other words, that one extra shot propelling Harman to a five-shot lead more than doubled his chances to win.

    Just for fun, here’s the full list of players who held exactly a four-shot lead after 36 holes, and where they finished in the end. The winners are in bold. Interestingly enough, the PGA Championship has been poison to those with a four-shot lead; none have won in five tries, including Tiger Woods.

    Masters

    Henry Picard - 1935 - 4th
    Ed Dudley - 1938 - t-6
    Jim Ferrier - 1950 - 2nd
    Cary Middlecoff - 1955 - win
    Ken Venturi - 1956 - 2nd
    Arnold Palmer - 1964 - win
    Seve Ballesteros - 1980 - win
    Jack Nicklaus - 1981 - 2nd
    Greg Norman - 1996 - 2nd
    Mike Weir - 2003 - win
    Chris DiMarco - 2005 - 2nd

    PGA Championship

    Tommy Aaron - 1967 - T-20
    Gil Morgan - 1976 - T-8
    Tom Watson - 1978 - T-2
    Greg Norman - 1986 - 2nd
    Tiger Woods - 2009 - 2nd

    U.S. Open

    Tom McNamara - 1909 - 2nd
    James Barnes - 1921 - win
    Dustin Johnson - 2018 - 3rd

    Open Championship

    J.H. Taylor - 1900 - win
    Harry Vardon - 1902 - T-2
    Harry Vardon - 1903 - win
    George Duncan - 1911 - 8th
    Fred Daly - 1947 - win
    Henry Cotton - 1948 - win
    Fred Daly - 1952 - 4th
    Billy Casper - 1968 - 4th
    Tiger Woods - 2005 - win
    Rory McIlroy - 2014 - win

    That last name, Rory McIlroy, might be of particular interest to Harman. McIlroy’s lead was one less than Harman’s, but Rory still won, and the relevant fact there is that he did it right at Royal Liverpool. Heading into the weekend, Harman will be hoping that the old adage is true … history doesn't repeat itself, but it does rhyme.

    Thanks to Rick Gehman of RickRunGood.com for help in compiling this information

    • • •

    Is it the British Open or the Open Championship? The name of the final men’s major of the golf season is a subject of continued discussion. The event’s official name, as explained in this op-ed by former R&A chairman Ian Pattinson, is the Open Championship. But since many United States golf fans continue to refer to it as the British Open, and search news around the event accordingly, Golf Digest continues to utilize both names in its coverage.