AUSTIN, Texas — Brian Harman has enough reasons to feel at home in Texas. Now he has another one.

An outdoorsman who hunts, fishes and manages several hundred acres of timberland back home in Georgia, has long seemed like a natural fit in the Lone Star State. He already owns a Texas-sized trophy from his victory at the 2025 Valero Texas Open. He has the cowboy boots that came with it, too.

And after getting to 11 under at the Austin Championship presented by Compliance Solutions, Harman is once again hanging around near the top of a leaderboard in Texas.

“I won the Texas Open, man,” Harman said when asked if there was something about the state that suited him. “I just like Texas, it’s a nice place.”

Austin works for him, too.

Harman said he hasn’t spent a ton of time in the city beyond competing in the former WGC-Dell Technologies Match Play and making a couple of vacation trips. He twice finished in the top 10 at Austin Country Club before that event was taken off the schedule.

“I enjoy the city,” he said. “Yeah, I like being in Texas, it’s nice.” It certainly has been good to him.

A year ago in San Antonio, Harman won the Valero Texas Open by three shots for the fourth PGA Tour victory of his career. He did it the hard way, closing with a 75 on a day when the wind changed directions and turned the final round into what Harman called a “war of attrition.” His short game and a hot putter helped carry him through it.

The trophy from that victory found a prominent home.

“It’s beautiful but a heavy damn thing,” Harman said earlier this year of displaying it in his living room. “Boy, is it heavy.”

That outdoorsy side of Harman has been well documented. During his romp to the 2023 British Open title at Royal Liverpool, his passion for hunting became part of the story and helped produce nicknames such as “Brian the Butcher” and the “Butcher of Hoylake.”

But for now, Harman still has plenty he wants to accomplish inside the ropes.

His latest strong showing comes at an important point in his season. Harman entered the Austin Invitational No. 71 in the FedEx Cup Fall standings after a top-10 finish in Japan in his previous start. Missing the top 50 earlier in the season left him outside some of the Tour’s biggest events, something he admitted has bothered him.

“Obviously anytime there's tournaments that are going on that you're not qualified for, that's aggravating,” Harman said. “I've had a lot of chances at it this year and I haven't come up with much, so it's just nice to be playing some good golf.”

His latest round offered plenty of evidence of that. Harman made eight birdies and finished 11 under, keeping him in the mix.

“I got it in play a little bit better than yesterday, made a couple more putts,” he said. “Just around the hole all day. Other than the two bogeys, played a pretty clean round of golf.”

The veteran turns 40 in January, but he isn't treating that milestone as a finish line. Instead, missing the FedEx Cup top 50 seems to have given him something he didn't necessarily expect this late in his career: another mountain to climb.

“Climbing the hill's a lot easier than trying to stay on top of the hill,” Harman said. “Having a mountain to climb's been nice. It's sort of reset my expectations a little bit.”

He has been experimenting with different things at home and looking for ways to evolve his game rather than simply relying on what carried him to a major championship and five Ryder and Presidents Cup appearances.

“I still feel like I've got some time left,” Harman said. “Just trying to kind of put my nose back on the grindstone and get after it.”

The Austin course apparently doesn't hurt. Harman sees similarities between it and the setup where he won in San Antonio: demanding driving, quality greens and a penalty waiting when shots stray too far offline.

“You've got to hit some good golf shots out here,” he said. “It'll really punish you if you're off.”