Open champion Brian Harman is starting to embrace the ‘Butcher’ nickname he was given by British fans at Royal Liverpool this summer – and even his wife was amused by the American’s new moniker.
The left-hander, a keen hunter in his home state of Georgia, cut down a high-quality field in Hoylake as he led by five strokes on Friday and Saturday and extended his winning margin to six on a testing final day weather-wise.
The Ricky Ponting lookalike silenced the partisan home crowds on the links like no other player that week, holing 59 of 60 putts from inside 10 feet, which helped earn him his new nickname from the British media – and now he’s back in Europe, ready for anything the noisy Ryder Cup crowds in Rome may wish to throw at him.
At the time, he found the new nickname amusing but when he got home, he found it had even followed him back across the Atlantic.
“I’ve got to get one of those tabloids of ‘Brian the Butcher’ because it was a Brian the Butcher theme party that my wife threw me, which is fantastic,” he said.
“I can show you the emblem my wife came up with. It was very funny.
“We had T-shirts, golf balls, and one of the rotating cameras where you can hold a Brian the Butcher picture up and take pictures. It was fun.”
Meanwehile, teammate World No.1 Scottie Scheffler has been working on the one real weakness in his game – putting – and has drafted in an Englishman to help him.
Phil Kenyon has bases in Formby and Wigan as well as one in Georgia and can boast current European players Rory McIlroy, Justin Rose and Fleetwood among his clients.
Scheffler said: “It was something that I didn’t want to think about as the year went on because it would have been a change, but was right when the Tour Championship ended a month ago.
“He ended up coming to Dallas a few days later, we got some good work in and it’s been great.
“I think the second set of eyes with Phil was really helpful. It was good to get my brain in order and feel like I’m working in the right direction versus playing a bit of a guessing game.
“An Englishman in the American camp? When he came to Dallas I was joking with him.
“I told him his stuff is going to work so well he’s not going to be welcome back at his home club when he gets home after the Ryder Cup.”