As final rounds on the PGA Tour go, Sunday’s action at the Valero Texas Open was not a particularly scintillating day for most of the major players. But it wasn’t an easy day to go low either—by average field score (74.803), this was the hardest round of the event, and per DataGolf it was the third-hardest round at TPC San Antonio since 2004 as well as the second-hardest day on any course this year on tour. Through wind and nerves, it was 54-hole leader Brian Harman who emerged from the carnage to post a hard-earned 75, finish the event at nine under, and capture the fourth tour victory of his career.

It was an emotional day for Harman, because winning wasn’t the only thing on his mind. Last fall, while Harman was in China, a family friend named Cathy Dowdy attempted to rescue his 6-year-old son Walter when he was carried out to sea on a rip tide while on vacation. She was unable to reach him—Walter was rescued by another man—and in the process of her rescue attempt, she suffered injuries and went into a coma for weeks. As Dan Hicks noted on the NBC broadcast, Dowdy was recently moved to hospice care, and Harman’s family flew home on Saturday to be with her.

“I’m playing with a heavy heart today,” Harman said after his round. “Miss Cathy went after my boy in the water, she’s not doing so good, and just thinking about her all day.”

As the gusts topped 30 mph in San Antonio, Harman actually outdueled his playing partners, Andrew Novak and Tom Hoge, each of whom shot 76 to slip down the leaderboard. In the end, the only whiff of a challenge came from Ryan Gerard, one of only three players to crack 70 on the day. Gerard, the Raleigh, N.C., native playing in just his second full season on tour, posted a 69 to move up 15 spots on the leaderboard into solo second. Still, he was never a true threat, finishing a full three shots behind the 38-year-old Harman.

In fact, despite the 75, Harman didn’t have a particularly “bad” round, by the stats—the average score for the field clocked in at 74.803, putting him just decimal points behind the mean. In fact, the tournament average for all players (72.477) put the Valero as the second-hardest course of the year on tour, behind only Torrey Pines South.

For Harman, his strength lay in his irons (second in strokes gained/approach on the week) and his flat stick (sixth in strokes gained/putting), which more than made up for losing strokes off the tee. He used a new putter this week after some frustration with his mid-range results, and returns were instant, as Harman didn’t miss a putt inside eight feet all week until late in the final round. But it was far from smooth sailing for the Georgia alum and 2023 Open champion on the front nine Sunday, when he followed a birdie on two with bogeys on 4 and 6 and a worrying double on 9 after an errant drive incurred a penalty. He righted the ship with two pars, then seized control of the event once again with a 14-foot birdie on 12—which extended his lead back to two, and which he counted as one of the day’s two most important moments—and a nine-footer on 14. Subsequent bogeys on 15 and 16 didn’t cost him, as he coasted in with two tap-in pars to secure the trophy.

“Just having a little bit of experience and knowing that score was kind of a relative thing today, it was more kind of a game of attrition,” Harman said. “The conditions just wouldn’t allow for a super low score. I didn’t have my best stuff today, but good enough to make a few putts, and a couple birdies on the back nine helped a lot.”

Harman’s experience paid dividends all day, but that experience was hard-earned, he told reporters, through a good deal of competitive misery earlier in his career.

“I’ve had to learn that lesson the hard way with a bunch of failures across my career where you look back at a tournament, like gosh, if I could have just kept my cool for a little bit longer, if I could have just hung in there for a little bit longer, maybe I could have made a run,” he said. “So I just tried really hard today to not let my emotions get out in front. As much as I wanted to think about winning and holding the trophy and calling my wife and telling her how happy I was, you don’t get to do that until the job’s done. Just left foot, right foot, finish the job and then you get to have fun.”

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Jonathan Bachman

At around the turn, Harman said that his competitive focus turned to Novak, the only player who seemed, at the time, within reach. But Novak, seeking his first tour win, began to unravel on 8, and finished with six bogeys on the day against three birdies.

“I could never figure out the greens,” Novak said. “I felt like the greens were way slower today for some reason. I could not get a ball to the hole … I can’t even count how many putts I left short, and I don’t know why they were slow today.”

Gerard’s back door second-place finish is the best of his career, and he chalked up his strong play amid the broader devastation to his short game, where he finished as the fourth-best putter and the best around the green player by strokes gained in the final round.

“Even if you’re striping it, you’re probably going to miss some greens whether it just be some wind gusts or some weird angles,” he said. “This course is not easy without the wind, so you’ve just got to really be prepared for whatever it might give you and just try and take it as it comes and just be positive all day.”

That positivity and skill led to what Gerard called a “one in a million” up-and-down on 12, when he intentionally hit a low 7-iron chip from the trees into a bunker, aiming just below the lip in the hope that it would pop out onto the green. It worked, and he buried the ten-footer to preserve his bogey-free day—a streak that would only come to an end on 18, when a tap-in bogey secured him second alone.

Only two players bested Gerard on Sunday—Patrick Fishburn and Thorbjorn Olesen each posted a 68, and each fought their way to four under and a top-five finish. Five other players matched them at that score, just a shot behind Maverick McNealy and Novak, who finished at five under in a tie for third.

Inevitably, late in Harman’s news conference, discussion turned to Augusta, where he’ll seek to capture the second major of his career. Despite the magnitude of that challenge, Harman will take the positive signs where he gets them, especially after feeling rusty earlier in the year.

“You know, I’m 38, I’m not 25 anymore,” he said. “I know that I’m getting a little greyer, so you start looking at like, man, how many more chances do I have at Augusta, how many more chances do I have at a U.S. Open, and all the things that you want to do? Just knowing I can come out here in tough conditions and play well as an older veteran on Tour makes me feel good about next week … this is about as good of prep as you can get for Augusta.”

Main Image: Jonathan Bachman