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ABERDEEN STANDARD INVESTMENTS SCOTTISH OPEN

July 15, 2018

Brandon Stone

Gullane, Scotland

Q. Congratulations. You're the winner of the Aberdeen Standard Investments Scottish Open. Just describe the sense of achievement for me, having shot 60 in the final round.
BRANDON STONE: It's incredible. If I'm going to be brutally honest, I had no idea what my score was until I walked on the 13th green. It was just one of those days where everything went well, hit it great, holed some beautiful putts, and obviously to walk away with 60 having missed an eight-footer was a slight disappointment, but I won't really complain.

Q. What goes through your mind and body when you did realize you had a 59 on the 18th green?
BRANDON STONE: Mostly my caddy came up to me and said, you don't get putts like this too often. So I let him read it. I said as we walked on the green, I'm not reading this one. This is completely up to you. I rolled it over his mark, but he did criticize my pace, he said it lacked a little bit of pace. So he probably is right. Didn't hold its line, but we'll take it.

Q. You started the morning round three behind, but 10 people in front of you, so obviously you needed an exceptional round. At what point in the round did you say to yourself, hey, I could win this?
BRANDON STONE: A tough one. I think obviously the wedge shots on 15 and 16 were quite pivotal, gave myself fantastic opportunities there. And then the putt on 16 is pretty much where you could say the tournament was won for me. I felt great. I knew I just needed to make three more good swings, and when that thing went home, the emotions came flooding in. I had to really struggle to keep it in. It's been a long 18-month journey, making a few changes, but the swing felt incredible today. The putting felt even better, the mental state was flawless. So a day where you're shooting 60 and winning the Aberdeen Scottish Open is something I'm going to hold dear to my heart for a long time.

Q. You're off to the Open Championship now. Obviously in this sort of form, just describe how excited you are about the possibility.
BRANDON STONE: Extremely excited. But obviously we are playing at Carnoustie, and that golf course can humble you very quickly. So I'm under no elusions I'm going to have to do my preparation correctly. I'm going to hopefully get in there tomorrow. Hopefully I can find accommodation, if I'm going to be honest. I wasn't exactly planning on going through. But it was a fantastic week this week, and hopefully I can build on this and get a few more results coming into the final series at the end of the year.

Q. And finally, I understand that you suffered a loss recently, which was a bit of extra incentive for playing well today.
BRANDON STONE: Yeah. The tournament director of the Nedbank Golf Challenge, Dan Sevel, tragically passed away at the start of the week, and all the South African boys, myself, Dean Burmester, Justin Walters and ^ Darren Fichardt were feeling particularly low when we came on the golf course. He was a very energetic, very happy person, and to have him not with us anymore is obviously a massive loss for us and a massive loss for the ^ Nedbank Golf Challenge. So hopefully he's looking down on us. I took a little look up on 18th fairway there saying this one was for all the boys back home that are going to be missing you for the next few months.

Q. Many, many, congratulations. Fabulous performance.
BRANDON STONE: Thank you very much.

I've been doing a lot of hard work, putting in a lot of hours, and I've been saying for the last three or four months that I felt close. And I had one of my best mates on the bag, Teagan Moore, for the last few events, and he's been incredible for me. He's the psychological aspects that he's helped me with the last few weeks, and then he actually on the drive up from the Irish Open he convinced me to change back to a blade putter. Did that on Monday, and seemed to work pretty well this week.

Q. You made almost everything you looked at, except for the putt on 18. At what point did you realize you had a chance at history today?
BRANDON STONE: Walking on the 18th green actually. I didn't even know what the scores were. My caddy had banned me from looking at any score boards, and every time my eyes would wander that way he would quickly grab my attention. But yeah, walking on to the 18th green, took a look and saw it, I was like, oh, here we go. I looked at him and he looked at me and he's like, yeah. We've gotta putt for this. I said, okay, cool, you read it because I'm not going to try and read this one. I hit it over his mark and he criticized my lack of pace, so that's why it went a little bit low.

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