The more you watch him you better you like him.  Brian Harman has moved into my top five golfers that I want to watch. Three play on LIV.

To say the 50th edition of The Players Championship made an impression on me is an enormous understatement.

Pete Dye, the artist with a different canvas, created a course where any miss-hit or judgement error means there is a price to pay.  However very skilled players have a chance of recovery. This course, like Augusta National, requires pure ball striking and creative recovery shots.

The best player won for the second year in a row, but each of the three runners-up proved that can play. I wish there could have been four winners. Each of these players distancing himself from the field and had a chance to win with his final stroke.

Last year Brian Harman impressed the golf world with the Open Championship win at Royal Liverpool. His waggle, waffle, waggle address drives fans a little nuts, but his pure ball striking is impressive. His ram-it-in-the-back-of-the-hole putting proves he has no fear of a four or five footer coming back. In this golf writers’ eyes, Brian Harman is a champion golfer who will win again on a big stage. He is an athlete with a small man’s attitude, much like Gary Player. He plays golf with supreme confidence and a repeatable swing.

Research on Brian proves that he is a driven perfectionist who limits his interests to a few things but does each very well.

Harman is quoted: “My biggest thrill outside golf is bow hunting. I have been hunting since a very young age and learned to skin a deer at age 8. My nickname within my family is the butcher. Back home at the hunting place I own, we plant food for the animals. Everything we do is for the wildlife. When we harvest it, we respect it and take care of it. We eat a lot of wild meat at my house.”

When he was very young Brian’s parents bought a home on a golf course in Savana, Ga. His dentist father and chemist mother, both athletes, did not play golf. Brian grew up playing baseball. He was a right-handed pitcher and played shortstop between starts. He was the leadoff hitter for his team who could hit either right or left-handed. “As a leadoff hitter I usually batted left-handed.”

Even though he lived on a course, Brian did not play golf and had little interest in the game until age 12. In 1997 he was home from school sick and started watching the US Open. He recalls telling Steve Jones, the US Open winner that year this story, “Man, you’re probably going to think I’m crazy, but you’re the reason I started playing golf. I watched you win that tournament and thought it was so cool that you could work that hard and have it all to show.” The next day Brian started playing golf with the kids in his neighborhood. He used his left-handed baseball swing and it stuck. Golf is the only thing Harman does left-handed.

“I got good because I’m obsessive. I have one of those minds where I freak out whenever I figure out something I really like doing. I do it to the max. We were not members, but I started hitting balls at the range. My dad bought me a range membership for $200 per year. After that I hit balls all day long.”

Harman quickly achieved success as a junior golfer winning several big tournaments. He played college golf at Georgia and credits Rickey Fowler with at least some of his success.

Brian Harman took down Rickie Fowler in an epic match at Inverness Club in Toledo, Ohio in the 2009 NCAA Championship. Harman, a senior at Georgia proved that he was a bulldog finishing the match with three straight birdies against Rickie Fowler the number 1 player for Oklahoma State. The winner of the match and his team would move on to the semifinal round. 

Harman felt snubbed by Fowler and Oklahoma State coach Mike McGraw. Fowler led 1 up after 14 holes, then two-putted for par on the 15th, forcing Harman to have to make an eight-footer to tie. Harman holed it, then had to replace the flagstick, Fowler and Oklahoma State coach already left the green. Harman thought, “I’m about to kick that guy in the teeth.” Three straight birdies did just that.

Good things for Harman seem to come in three.

Harman is one of three pros who have made two holes-in-one during the same round. At the 2015 Barclays Championship Brian aced the 183 yard third and the 218-yard 14th.

As major season officially starts Harman is on a very short list of left-handed golfers who have won The Open Championship, three. Bob Charles & Phil Mickelson.

If he could sneak up on the favorites and capture the Masters crown. He would join three other lefties joining Watson, Weir and Michelson.