Earlier today top professional Lee Westwood wrote a column in which he defended our new Open Champion.

I read an article on Monday morning which thoroughly disgusted me. It was on a specialist golf website and the headline declared that ‘golf was due a dud’. The level of disrespect towards Brian Harman and his remarkable victory at the Open on Sunday was astounding.

“You expect that nonsense in the dark recesses on Twitter, but not in one of the best-known magazines in America. I will not name the publication because it has some great journalists who I don’t want to implicate. But, at the very least, the headline should be changed. In short, it is a disgrace and shows a complete lack of understanding of the nature of the sport in that publication’s very own title.”

“Brian converted 54 of his first 54 putts within 10 feet and when he finally missed one – on the 13th during the final round – he bounced straight back with a 40-footer on the next green. I always hesitate to compare anyone with Tiger, but this was undoubtedly ‘Tiger-esque’.”

In his victory press conference Harman said that a member of the gallery had told him thar he was going to lose because “he hadn’t got the stones for it” (another word was probably used) and that had motivated him more.

You can read Joel McBeal’s piece on golfdigest.com