Brian Harman flips bird to camera after 3M Open finish, earning laugh from Scottie Scheffler

Golfer Brian Harman had himself a pretty good weekend at the 3M Open in Minnesota. The 2023 Open Champion played 20-under on the tournament, earning himself a T3 finish and a $429,550 payday.

But golf is a frustrating game, and Harman was ready to show a bit of his frustration after his final round. While sitting at the scoring table alongside his playing partner Scottie Scheffler, Harman noticed the CBS/ESPN+ camera that was on the pair and promptly flipped the bird. Scheffler could only laugh at the scene.

Brian Harman to the camera in scoring

Scottie Scheffler got a chuckle out of that one pic.twitter.com/ow8Q5QVvgg

— Cameron Jourdan (@Cam_Jourdan) July 26, 2026

What had Harman so upset? It’s tough to say for sure. Shooting 20-under across four days of golf and still losing to a 21-year-old who has only been a pro for a month probably isn’t all that fun.

Additionally, the gesture could just be a call for a bit of privacy. Any golfer in contention has a lot of eyes on them during the final round. Playing with Scheffler, those eyes are exponentially greater. After 18 grueling holes where your every movement can be dissected, maybe Harman just needed a break.

A need for a bit of privacy after facing the intensity of professional sports has become a talking point recently. In the world of tennis, Coco Gauff expressed frustration after a post-match outburst she believed to be private was caught on camera at the Australian Open. The moment started a conversation in the sport, with Wimbledon committing to reviewing behind-the-scenes footage before broadcasting it, and the French Open maintaining its camera-free spaces backstage. One tournament, the ATX Open, went as far as including a designated “Rage Room” where players could be sure to have privacy while going to town on a racket.

Journalistically, such privacy can be a difficult needle to thread. On the one hand, it’s understandable that players would like to have a private space where their every movement won’t come under the microscope. On the other, the intense pressure of sports, especially individual sports like golf and tennis, is a huge part of what makes them so compelling to watch. The challenge that athletes face is as much that pressure as it is the other athletes they are competing against. Such outbursts—be it a middle finger or a racket break—may lead to a bummer of a media cycle for an individual, but on the whole they are a selling point that shows just how hard it is to compete at the highest level.

Obviously Harman’s case is a bit different—he is looking straight into the camera, well aware that his gesture will be seen—but the sentiment feels similar. Maybe all Harman really needed was a room where he could break a few plates before signing his scorecard. Or, alternatively, he might have just been a bit tired and felt like giving someone the finger. We’ve all been there.

Gestures aside, making $429,550 for a weekend’s worth of work probably helps ease one’s frustration, at least a bit.

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