Brian Harman recently purchased a Kubota to use on his property in Georgia
By Diego Flammini
Staff Writer
Farms.com
During his press conference after winning the Open Championship at Royal Liverpool by six strokes and earning a $3 million payday, Brian Harman told reporters how he planned to celebrate.
The 36-year-old from Savannah, Ga., owns about 1,000 acres of land and has about 40 acres in need of attention. He plans to trade the greens of the golf course for an orange tractor for some property maintenance.
Harman mentions his celebration plans beginning around the 2:30 mark of the video.
“I’ll get home and I’ll be on the tractor mowing grass in the next few weeks, so I’m excited about that,” he said. “I might take a whole day and just put my phone away and go get on the tractor.”
Harman’s tractor is a new 105-horsepower unit from Kubota’s M5001 Narrow series.
He purchased it before leaving to play in the Open Championship and hasn’t had the opportunity to operate it.
Harman isn’t the only professional athlete to make farm and property maintenance equipment purchases.
In 2016, for example, the offensive line of the Dallas Cowboys created holes for running back Ezekiel Elliott to run through so big that people around football said tractors could fit through them.
Taking that sentiment a step further, Elliott, who in 2016 scored 15 touchdowns and ran for 1,631 yards, or about one-third of an acre, bought each of the offensive linemen a John Deere Gator 855d.
And in 2010, another golfer made an ag purchase after winning the Open Championship.
That year, South African golfer Louis Oosthuizen, who is also a farmer, bought a green tractor to celebrate his first major tournament victory.
“Being a farm boy it was one of my big dreams and I bought myself a nice John Deere tractor for my farm back in South Africa,” he said, The Guardian reported. “John Deere is very close to my heart. It’s for me to drive around on and I made sure there was enough space for my little daughter Jana to sit beside me. We’re going to have a lot of fun.”