Harman has Open lead — and distance to go

HOYLAKE, England — The problem in any sport, particularly golf, where you have no control of your opponents, and often little control of yourself, is to make presumptions. 

It’s a game where a three-stroke lead can be snatched away even before you get to the first tee, a game where it’s as much a danger of planning too far as remembering the past.

At the halfway mark of this 2023 British Open, a somewhat famous guy named Brian Harman has what could be called a comfortable lead.

Harman in Friday’s second round shot a 6-under 65. That gave him a 36-hole score of 10-under 132, a record low for Opens at Royal Liverpool, where the last two champions were Rory McIlroy and Tiger Woods.

It also gave him a five-shot lead over local hero Tommy Fleetwood, who had a semi-disappointing 71. That’s even par, or as they choose to say in Britain, level par.

But as delighted — a word he used — by a round highlighted and enhanced by an eagle on the par-five finishing hole, he knows so many things can happen.

And in a career prior to his hot-shot days in high school and the University of Georgia, not infrequently had happened to him.

Harman, 36, does have four wins on tour, but he also has a lost loss after carrying a one-shot lead into the fourth round of the 2017 U.S. Open.

“I have a very active mind,’ said Harman, asked about getting ahead of myself. “It's hard for me — I've always struggled with trying to predict the future and trying to forecast what's going to happen. I've just tried to get really comfortable just not knowing.”

Despite the ignorance-is-bliss attitude, Harman has to know at this 151st edition of the oldest of all championships, major or minor, he’ll never be in a better position to take a trophy — or at the Open, the claret jug.

Still 36 holes — and bewildering possibilities like Jordan Spieth shanking a ball out of the high grass on Thursday — remain in the way.

As others from the States, Harman needed to adjust to links golf after struggling his first several appearances at the Open, when he missed the cut.

“Now I like links golf,” he said. “I like the challenges, the strategies.”

He also likes the way he played.