Paying Brian Harman The Respect He Deserves After 'Boring' Open Championship, Ranking This Year's Majors, What Golf Fans Have To Look Forward To

Brian Harman lifted the Claret Jug and now we get to wait 262 days until the next major championship. Great, awesome.

The year's final major championship wasn't exactly thrilling, but the idea that it was a completely boring snoozefest isn't accurate, plus, it's a bit disrespectful toward Harman's dominance at Hoylake.

READ: BRIAN HARMAN ADMITS ONE HECKLER IN PARTICULAR MOTIVATED HIM TO HIS OPEN CHAMPIONSHIP VICTORY

Speaking of major championships, there is one clear-cut favorite that stood above the rest from both an entertainment and historical standpoint. We'll take a look back at each of the year's majors and rank them 1-4.

While we're on Day 1 of a nine-month stretch without major championship golf, there is plenty to look forward to over the next handful of months in the world of professional golf. Let's try not and sulk between now and April when the attention turns toward The Masters.

'Boring' Is The Wrong Word To Describe The Open

The overwhelming majority of golf fans and even media members spent Sunday complaining about how boring The Open was. And look, I get it, a 36-year-old two-time PGA Tour winner winning a major championship by six shots isn't what golf fans or the R&A would have drawn up for this past week.

Brian Harman is the 2023 Champion Golfer of the Year, and no, The Open was not 'boring.' (Photo by BEN STANSALL/AFP via Getty Images)

We all live for dramatic finishes in sports, but saying that a player lapping the field at a major championship is boring is straight-up disrespectful. We have to go back to Tiger Woods' eight-shot win in 2000 to find a comparable Open to what we witnessed Harman pull off at Royal Liverpool.

Granted I was 7 when Woods won by eight at St. Andrews, but I'm going to go ahead and say that nobody was calling his eight-shot win 'boring.' And no, by no means am I comparing Harman to Woods, I'm simply saying we should try to appreciate an all-time performance before immediately bitching about how boring the experience was.

Harman was the best player walking the planet from Thursday to Sunday of last week. He beat the likes of Jason Day and Jon Rahm by six, Rory McIlroy by seven, and Tommy Fleetwood by nine walking the same exact golf course and hitting the same golf shots that were asked of them making it look easy.

If it were Jordan Spieth, Scottie Scheffler, Rahm, or McIlroy winning The Open by six we would be talking about an all-time great stretch of golf, not how boring it was to watch unfold.

Ranking Golf's Major Championships In 2023, Why The PGA Trumps All

Major championship golf in 2023 delivered, just as it always does, but the PGA Championship has to be remembered as the major of the year.

And yes, before you come at me in the comments, I recognize that you just read about how The Open wasn't boring yet I still ranked it fourth in the rankings. It was without question the least-exciting major of the year, but that doesn't mean it was a boring golf tournament.

1. Brooks Koepka Wins The PGA Championship

The PGA Championship consistently gets labeled as the worst of golf's four majors, but it has somewhat sneakily delivered the goods for a number of years now, and Brooks Koepka is responsible for a lot of the tournament's recent greatness.

After coming close to winning a green jacket in April, Koepka put the disappointment in the rearview and showed up to Oak Hill as a man possessed. Posting a final-round score of 3-under to best Scottie Scheffler and Viktor Hovland by two shots, Koepka not only hoisted the Wanamaker for the third time of his career but earned major No. 5, one more than McIlroy.

As for Oak Hill, the setup was great. It was an awesome mix of gettable holes yet demanded plenty from the field, which was well-represented with the winning score from Koepka being 9-under par.

Brooks Koepka's win at the PGA Championship delivered the top major of 2023. (Photo by Darren Carroll/PGA of America via Getty Images)

2. Jon Rahm Wins A Soggy Masters

Given that there isn't a blade of grass out of place at Augusta National, it always feels a little weird when Mother Nature shows up and forces The Masters to scramble a bit. The torrential rain forced many players to finish their third rounds Sunday before teeing off in what was the final round, and it was a little refreshing to see a little chaos.

Koepka entering the final round with a two-shot lead over Rahm, setting up an 18-hole showdown between two of the game's killers, helped the cause as well.

Rahm ultimately seized the moment while Koepka simply didn't have his best stuff when it counted, but despite the Spaniard's eventual four-shot victory, it was a major to remember.

Phil Mickelson firing a 65 on Sunday to finish tied for second place was electrifying stuff. We also can't forget about the ginormous pine tree falling near the 15th green and somehow missing the patrons.

The 2023 Masters was strange, but great.

3. Wyndham Clark Emerges At The U.S. Open

Wyndham Clark didn't enter the U.S. Open at Los Angeles Country Club as an under-the-radar player, but he wasn't on many people's lists of potential winners, either.

Looking back, Clark's win at LACC may be the most impressive win of the majors this season.

Most expected him to show a crack in his armor as he entered the final round with a one-shot lead, yet he simply refused to do so. Instead, he showed that he's a player that oozes confidence and isn't afraid of big-game hunting. His short game being beyond elite didn't hurt his cause either.

Clark held off Rickie Fowler, Cam Smith, McIlroy, and Scheffler to earn his first major championship while officially announcing his arrival on the global stage.

As for Los Angeles Country Club as a venue, it stunk. Nobody in Los Angeles cares about sports, let alone golf, and there was something gross about having an Open tournament at one of the most exclusive golf courses on Earth.

You could argue the U.S. Open was the best major of the year, but I refuse to do so due to LACC simply not being a worthy venue.

Wyndham Clark winning the 2023 U.S. Open is undoubtedly one of the stories of the year. (Photo by Richard Heathcote/Getty Images)

4. Brian Harman Torches Royal Liverpool

Again, The Open at Hoylake was not boring. It was the purest example of how goofy yet awesome the game of golf is.

Harman entered the week a Top 30 player in the world but was an afterthought heading into Thursday's opening round. It just so happened that he was incredibly comfortable out there and was hitting the golf ball better than anyone else on the property at the time.

It also didn't hurt that he finished the week with just 106 putts going 58 for 59 from 10 feet and in.

Max Homan, Cam Young, Tom Kim, McIlroy, Fleetwood, Rahm, and Day all finished inside the Top 10. Looking at that list blindly you would say it had to be an electrifying finish, but unfortunately for those guys, Brian Harman was also involved, and playing a different game than everyone else.

Three Things To Look Forward To Between Now And 2024

Major season is behind us, unfortunately, but there is still tons to pay attention to between now and the new year.

First and foremost, professional golf as we've always known it is potentially changing sooner rather than later with the PGA Tour's proposed merger with the Saudi Arabia Public Investment Fund (PIF). The drama has never been higher away from the golf course and all signs point to that being the case for months to come, so at least we have that to tie us over until now and April.

Golf fans will also be saved later this Fall with the Ryder Cup being contested in Italy. Leading into the event we'll have plenty to monitor with who should or should not represent the U.S. or Team Europe.

The 2023 Ryder Cup gets underway at the end of September in Rome. (Photo by Andrew Redington/Getty Images)

The Americans are the favorites, but seeing as how they haven't won a Cup on European soil since 1993, I'm not sure 'favorites' is the right word to be using. Nevertheless, you better believe we'll be getting up at the crack of dawn to cover the best event in golf and see if the U.S. can end its 0-6 run across the pond.

Oh, and the FedEx Cup Playoffs. Those are happening, too. Someone will become a very, very rich man at the conclusion of The Tour Championship at the end of August playing in a tournament where players start under par.

Follow Mark Harris on Twitter @ItIsMarkHarris