I’m a golf nerd so I watch everything I can, including Erik van Rooyen winning and retaining his PGA Tour card and Brandon Stone graduating from the Challenge Tour to the DP World Tour.
Erik’s win was amazing. I see him a fair bit, we don’t live too far from each other and we practise at the same course. I know it’s been a tough year for him so I was so happy for him.
His final-round interview was very emotional. It’s hard to go out there and play when you’ve got personal stuff happening in the background. I’ve also been dealing with something. My first caddie who travelled with me and was was like a big brother to me passed away recently from melanoma, the same thing as Erik’s close friend.
People don’t know what’s going on with non-golf stuff and it is hard. You’ve got to put things aside, as Erik said.
Everybody deals with difficult things; they have to get up, and go to work and try to get on with it, no matter what they’re dealing with in life.
Maybe it’s tough for us because of the intensity and we don’t get to see the people who are ill or struggling with something. I think that’s what maybe also makes it harder. You want to go and see them but it’s just not possible, we have to do our jobs.
It weighs on you emotionally when you’re out there. When I was in Canada I was really struggling because I’d just found out there was nothing more they could do for my close friend.
You’re out there on the course and you hit a bad shot, and you just don’t have the mental capacity to deal with the emotions. So you get more frustrated and then you’ve got to remind yourself that, as Erik said, this is just golf. There are way bigger things going on in life.
It’s tough because it is intense and you don’t want to fail, you want to do your best but sometimes it’s just not possible. You need to step away. We all go through different things in life.
As Erik said, you go there, do your job and afterwards you just break down. Then you get up the next day and you do it again. We are fortunate because we have people who can help us. We both work with the same sports psychologist. He was helpful during that time for me and I’m sure he was with Erik, too.
I watched the whole of the Challenge Tour and was following Brandon. I’ve known him for a long time. I know how hard he’s worked this year to get back to the DP World Tour. It was tight for him, too.
It’s great somebody winning and playing on the PGA Tour but stories like Brandon’s are even more important and more impressive. When they did the Netflix Full Swing series we said they should rather follow the guys on the Korn Ferry or the Challenge Tour for a year, then you really know what it’s like. It’s always great to watch those guys and how much it means to them when they get to the next stage.
Brandon has won the Scottish Open which is one of the biggest events, and what he did this year was amazing – to accept it, take a step back and rebuild.
I take my hat off to him saying, ‘I’m going to accept this and I’m to do this; I’m going to get back there and I’m going to be better.’
– This column first appeared in the December 2023 issue of Compleat Golfer magazine.
Photos: Octavio Passos/Hector Vivas/Getty Images/Gallo Images
