Georgia native Brian Harman is riding a hot stretch of form that’s propelled him from 95th in the world a few weeks ago (per Official Golf World Ranking) to tied for second at Augusta National after Thursday’s action.
Harman, 34, is playing in his third Masters and wouldn’t be here without a surprising T3 result (-12, along with Bryson DeChambeau) at The Players Championship in March, an event that boasted the strongest field of the year thus far.
Harman was also helped by his quarterfinal berth in the WGC-Matchplay event two weekends ago. The former Bulldog advanced from the Round of 16 with a win over another UGA product, Bubba Watson. Harman then fell to former Georgia Tech Yellowjacket Matt Kuchar.
Those recent results were strong enough to get him into the exclusive Masters field and through one round, Harman has made it look like no accident.
It was Harman and Hideki Matsuyama that angled for the lead throughout the morning groups. Harman shot four birdies to just one bogey for his -3 score, with three of those birdies coming on the back nine.
Three under was the score to beat for much of the day before a scorching Justin Rose shot six-under on the back nine for a round of 65 and a four-shot lead on Matsuyama and Harman.
However, there is a lot more golf to play and those knotted up in the leaderboard behind Rose are as live as any to make a push should the leader falter.
Harman, currently 50th on the OWGR, has two wins on the PGA Tour. He won the John Deere Classic in 2014 and the Wells Fargo Championship in 2017. Harman tees off at 12:12 p.m on Friday alongside Ian Poulter and another former Bulldog, Brendon Todd.
Tyler Strong is the Business Editor for The Augusta Press. Reach him at tyler@theaugustapress.com
