Defending Champ Harman Marches To His Own Beat

Lefty Hopes To Become Second Player To Successfully Defend Junior Amateur Title

By David Shefter, USGA

 

San Francisco - Spend a few minutes with 2003 U.S. Junior Amateur champion Brian Harman and you quickly discover he's not your typical 17-year-old.

 

Brian Harman would like to hoist the U.S. Junior Amateur trophy for a second consecutive year. (USGA Photo Archives)

Maybe it's because he's a lefty. Southpaws have a reputation for sometimes being a little quirky (think former major league pitcher Bill Lee, a.ka. Spaceman).

 

Harman isn't aloof, but eclectic might be an appropriate characterization. Case in point: his hobbies. While most of his brethren enjoy spending free time surfing the Internet or playing the latest video game, Harman prefers the gaming pursuit of another matter.

 

"Hunting season is starting in about a month," says the Savannah, Ga., resident. "I'm a big hunter. Deer and wild pigs. We go across the river in South Carolina. But right now it's fishing season.

 

"For some of these kids out here [at the Junior Amateur] it's golf, golf, golf. I've just got some distractions. I can play golf whenever. I can go out [and play] when I get back from fishing."

 

Spend a few minutes watching Harman play golf and you see the talent. He steps right up and knocks in 20-footers as if they're tap-ins. Despite his diminutive 5-foot-7 frame, he generates plenty of power with a gentle left-to-right draw.

 

You quickly notice a general confidence to his swagger. You see it in his gait. You see it as he steps over a 50-footer like the one he had a few weeks back at Forest Oaks Country Club in Greensboro, N.C. Needing just two putts to get into a playoff at the American Junior Golf Association's FootJoy Boys Invitational, Harman decided things in regulation, holing the monster putt to win the tournament by a stroke at 6 under par.

 

"You just have to go out there thinking you can make every putt," said Harman. "If you think about anything else but making the putt, you are not going to make it."

 

This kind of confidence didn't just happen overnight. Harman has always taken on challenges, no matter how difficult they might be. When he was in sixth grade, he played middle linebacker and left tackle on his tackle football team. And he returned punts on special teams. Al l this despite being the second-smallest kid on the squad.

 

"I was a hell-raiser," he says with a smile. "I was the best defensive player."

 

That kind of self-assuredness has played out quite handsomely on the golf course where Harman has won some 45 junior tournaments. Last year, he was the AJGA's Player of the Year, a season that included winning the Junior Amateur after a disappointing quarterfinal defeat in 2002, as well as the Polo Junior, the only match-play competition on the AJGA circuit. In the semifinals, he had to survive a 24-hole match with Robert Riesen.

 

As he prepared for the 2003 Junior Amateur at Columbia Country Club in Chevy Chase, Md., Harman channeled that 2002 quarterfinal loss and used it as motivation. His grit and determination enabled him to survive a tough first-round 20-hole match with Justin Hull before rolling in his next five matches, including a 5-and-4 victory over Jordan Cox in the final.

 

But Harman didn't let the championship alter his thinking or demeanor. It didn't completely change his life, either.

 

"I did well enough without the Junior [title] last year that my life was going to change anyway," says Harman, who has already verbally committed to play college golf at the Unviersity of Georgia. "I still want to feel like people will treat me the same way. There is always that title from a USGA championship, which is nice. I don't mind it at all. It was a great accomplishment and I'm proud of it, but I like to forget about those types of things and just like to win. You remember winning, but I remember how driven I was last year.

 

"I was definitely driven and definitely mad about the year before. I was kind of reliving some of that and remembering how it felt [to lose]. And I just know I really hate that."

 

This week at Olympic Club, Harman will try to become just the second golfer in Junior Amateur history to win consecutive championships. The only other player to achieve the feat is Tiger Woods (1991-93). In fact, Woods lost his only Junior Amateur match just down the road from Olympic Club at Lake Merced Country Club in 1990 in the semifinals to Dennis Hillman and then won 18 straight matches.

 

"That would be cool," Harman said. "I'll just try to play my best golf and hopefully get lucky. People back home are expecting me to do well. But what people don't realize is how hard it is to come here and win this tournament. You've got go out there and hopefully catch the right breaks and hit every shot like it's the last one I'll ever play."

 

Don't just don't expect to see Harman getting uptight. His experiences over the past year, which include playing in the U.S. Amateur, U.S. Open sectional qualifying, and the PGA Tour's MCI Classic in Hilton Head Island, S.C., should be invaluable on the challenging 6,790-yard, par-70 Olympic layout. Prior to the Junior, he finished fifth at the Northeast Amateur in Rhode Island and tied for ninth at the Rolex Tournament of Champions in Sunriver, Ore.

 

"I'm just living the dream," says Harman. "I've always tried to have that attitude about life. God gives you stuff that you can't always handle and I just don't worry about things."

 

The rest of the field at this year's Junior Amateur, however, might have to worry about Harman.

 

David Shefter is a staff writer for the USGA. E-mail him with comments or questions at dshefter@usga.org.