America's Brian Harman has won the 151st Open Championship golf at Royal Liverpool with a total of 13-under-par.
Harman carded a final round 70 to finish on 13-under-par, six shots clear a second placed quartet. The victory gives Harman a first major title.
“I've got to thank my wife, my family back home. I sure miss them” explained Harman when presented with the Claret jug.
“I can't wait to get back to them tomorrow” added Harman. “First I'm going to have me a couple pints out of this here trophy”.
“This golf course was a real test” explained Harman. “It was set up so great, even with the weather”.
“To all the fans, to all the nice words and all the people back home who were rooting me on, I appreciate it so much. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you”.
Mastery of the elements.
Brian Harman claims a supreme six stroke victory at Hoylake.
A magnificent performance. pic.twitter.com/Ic3HRsF5my
— The Open (@TheOpen) July 23, 2023
A quartet of Jason Day, Jon Rahm, Joo-Hyung Kim and Sepp Straka finished joint second on seven-under-par. Six shots off Harman.
McIlroy challenge falls on back nine
Meanwhile, 2011 open champion Rory McIlroy was the best of the Irish finishing on six-under-par. Whereas, McIlroy had started with early birdies and looked set for a top five finish. However another poor back-nine saw the challenge fade.
A “solid performance” explained McIlroy afterward. “Improved on my score every day. Yeah, I missed a few putts yesterday”.
I “felt like I putted a bit better today. It was just hard. I needed to go out and shoot something 63, 64-ish, but really hard to do that in those conditions”.
“I got off to a really good start but it's just hard to keep that going” explained McIllroy. “As you can see from the leaderboard no one is really going that low”.
“Just tricky conditions out there, and very reluctant to hit the driver because the club face gets wet and the ball could go anywhere. Sort of had to lay back off tees and try to play as conservatively and as smart as possible”.
“Yeah, overall solid performance, not spectacular, but a lot of optimism going into the rest of the year” added McIlroy.
Padraig Harrington shot a final round 74 to finish eight-over-par.
