Unheralded Harman leads into title Sunday at The Open, Sharma on track for good finish

Overnight leader Brian Harman set aside the nerves – and a tendency to over-think situations – to hold pole position at the 151st Open Championship going into the final day with a five-shot lead even as Shubhankar Sharma stayed on course for a best-ever Indian finish at the year’s final major.

Leading by five shots from Friday, Harman stuttered early but steadied the ship when it was most needed to card a 2 under par 69 that gave him a 54-hole aggregate of 12-under 201, with 2022 runner-up Cameron Young also of the US his closest challenger on 7 under 206.

Sharma (68-71-70) played steady golf through a tricky Moving Day that saw spells of rain scoot across the seaside Royal Liverpool Golf Club to return a 1 under card that had him in a tie for ninth place alongside young Englishman Matthew Fitzpatrick on 4 under 209.

It kept him on course to bring in a best-ever finish by an Indian at The Open, currently Jyoti Randhawa’s tied 27th at Royal Troon in 2004, while Anirban Lahiri’s shared fifth at the 2015 PGA Championship at Whistling Strait remains the best by an Indian at a men’s major.

Having made ground with a massive eagle putt on hole 5, Sharma held steady with 10 straight pars before he saw a middling (10-foot) putt lip out on 16 for his only blemish of the day.

The 27-year-old closed out with two further pars to finish eight shots behind Harman and unless Sunday brings a late collapse, should better his previous record at The Open from 2018 when he was 51st having played all four majors that year.

“Very pleased with myself,” Sharma was quoted as saying after his Moving Day finish. “I played solid, just one shot off the top five. Played great all three days. Scrambled really well. Made a lot of crucial putts, which I wasn’t holing in the past month or so.”

Looking ahead to the final round, he added, “I’ll stick to my processes that I’ve done in the first three days, maybe make a few adjustments on things that I need to do, just go in with the same mentality that I have had for the first few days.

“Tomorrow is a new day. I don’t know when the Open will be back here, so fourth round at a major, Liverpool, I’m really happy, and I’ll give it my best.”

Harman put himself under pressure early with two bogies in the first four holes and then had to contend with Spain’s world number three Jon Rahm who rewrote the Royal Liverpool course record with a round of 8 under 63 to come shooting up the leaderboard.

But the slim left-hander pulled it together in time and rediscovered the mental space he had found on Friday to stem the rot with four birdies, two on either side of the turn and keep a charging Cameron Young five shots astern.

Young was near-flawless in a 5 under 66, dropping just one shot on a day only Rahm managed to overpower the course, though Norway’s Viktor Hovland, a two-time winner of the Hero World Challenge in the Bahamas also clawed his way into the reckoning with a matching 66 of his own to total 5 under 208 for the three days.

Alongside the genial Norwegian were Frenchman Antoine Rozner who shot a 66, Jason Day of Australia who endured his share of struggles after starting alongside Sharma, Sepp Straka of Austria and England’s Tommy Fleetwood born just up the road from Hoylake.

Only once in the past has Harman – whose last title came six years ago -- led at a major after day three, that being a one-shot edge at the 2017 US Open where he would fall away at the death and finish in a tie for second with Japan’s Hideki Matsuyama behind Brooks Koepka.