A year ago Brandon Stone was ranked outside the top-500 in the world and only had a few top-10 finishes to his name on the Challenge Tour. Fast forward 12 months and the 23-year-old has a Sunshine Tour (Cape Town Open) and European Tour (SA Open) victory to his name and he is now the world number 95.
The University of Texas alumni had a first taste of major championship golf at the 145th Open Championship two weeks back at Royal Troon and now heads to Baltusrol Golf Club for the PGA Championship as he gets a chance to play in the US for the first time in his professional career.
The Rustenburg-born golfer has had a good all-round game this season, ranking in the top-100 on tour in all the key areas. His standout statistics are his stroke average (17th on the European Tour) and driving distance (31st). The Pretoria resident also has a useful 60,7% driving accuracy that will aide him in his game as he takes on a monster of a course in New Jersey.
European Tour winners Branden Grace and George Coetzee both recorded top-10 finishes at the year’s final major in 2015 and a performance by Stone anywhere near that will be outstanding, who also has the Olympics to look forward to after his week at the year’s final major.
