SOUTHAMPTON, NY – Every once in a while, Cormac McCarthy writes a line that rips a hole right into your eye sockets.
Everyone who has ever read McCarthy can attest to having experienced one of these moments, which I would describe as the closest thing literature has to letting someone pull over and punch you in the face. One of them came for me last summer, deep in the McCarthy’s The passengerwhen i ran into this.
“But salvation, like many other prizes, may simply be a matter of courage. You’d give up your dreams to escape your nightmares and I wouldn’t. I think it’s a bad bargain.”
I didn’t expect to think about Cormac McCarthy on Friday afternoon at the US Open. In fact, I hadn’t considered that line—which was so good it gave me goosebumps even when I copied it just a moment ago—since recording it months ago in the Notes app on my phone, where I semi-frequently catalog significant pieces of literature.
But then I got stuck in Harry Higgs press conference on Friday afternoon in Shinnecock Hills and realized it was telling me the line.
“I can just choose to be a factor,” Higgs said Friday. “I can choose to be like, you don’t have to be an insignificant little part of the 156 playing here — and I believe I was 156 out of 156. I can be a part of that, I’ve done it before.”
Higgs was talking about a very unusual Friday at Shinnecock — one that saw him claim his first cut on the PGA Tour in 2026, that gave him a legitimate shot at the US Open, that saw him keep his cool in the toughest test in pro golf. Higgs was a person of interest because of his score (his under was good enough for T7 in a crowded field at Shinnecock), but he was a HistoRy about the things he said next, when he opened up about the journey through golfing hell that had brought him here, on the eve of a weekend in contention at the US Open.
“Through six holes (in the US Open final qualifier a week ago), I was very close to quitting golf,” Higgs said. “It went the same way it always has. I missed a bunch of short putts early for birdie and then I made a horrible bogey on 6. I got out my phone, booked a flight home to Kansas City from Charlotte. We were playing outside of Charlotte and I was like, I’ll just go home. I’m leaving after the ninth hole. I’ll just go home. I don’t even know if I’m going to go to Amarillo and play Korn Ferry, and I don’t know if I’ll continue to do that.“
Harry Higgs just gave the best press conference I’ve seen from a golfer in at least a year.
They talked about “choosing faith.” About making his first PGA Tour cut of 2026 at Shinnecock (!!!). And to briefly forget his pants at this US Open. Listen to this. pic.twitter.com/k6sP508ky2
— James Colgan (@jamescolgan26) June 19, 2026
The 34-year-old did not give up golf. He birdied 13 of his next 30 holes to enter a playoff for an open spot at the US Open. He missed the playoffs, but earned first-choice status. More importantly, though, it sparked something inside that has been simmering ever since.
“I don’t know if I know the lesson I taught myself, but I think today was a byproduct of that,” Higgs said Friday, four days after winning late entry into the National Championship as an alternate and the same day he made four birdies to move onto the front page of the leaderboard.
“Man, I was cool. I was cool with bad shots. I was cool if things didn’t go my way. I’d just have my shoulders up, my head up,” Higgs said. “I’d walk like I owned this place. And boy, would I.” no.“
It didn’t take long for Higgs to prove that he doesn’t actually own one Shinnecock. He appeared on the golf course after a 3:30 a.m. wakeup call Thursday morning without pantsbriefly borrowing an ill-fitting pair from a golf equipment employee before his wife arrived minutes before his time with a backup pair.
“I would have ripped them off 100%,” he said. “They fit, but not that well. It would have been really funny to try to get a ball out of the hole and lift it up.”
And yet he survived. And then, on Friday, he flourished.
“I’m coming to realize that all these guys who do it over and over and win all these deals, I think they just make the choice to do it all the time,” he said. “I think the results make it maybe a little bit easier, but only a little bit. Those guys wake up and do the work and choose to act and believe they’re the best.”
Every once in a while, a golfer has such precociousness that a major championship victory seems less like a miracle and more like a foregone conclusion. Far less often do they possess the knowledge that a major championship win is most likely an impossibility … and the stubbornness to go after it anyway.
On Friday at Shinnecock, Higgs split on the latter. Salvation hasn’t come, at least not yet, but rest assured it’s not for lack of courage.
“Why not believe in myself?” Higgs said. “Why don’t I think I can do well at this? I let myself feel insignificant … I don’t need to do that anymore.”
And as for the nagging question, the one you’ve been thinking since McCarthy’s shot at the top: Can faith really be chosen?
“For the rest of this week I’m going to say yes,” Higgs said.
Who knows if he is right.
But at least, it’s a good bargain.
You can contact the author at james.colgan@golf.com.
