Patrick Reed, Scottish Open Winner Brandon Stone Pick Up Hickories And Golf Gods Karma While In Gullane
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Boris Lietzow's Jack White shop in Gullane Was A must visit for several scottish open players
The Golf Gods clearly endorsed Brandon Stone's affinity for links and hickories and they might have even guided him to victory in the 2018 Aberdeen Standard Investments Scottish Open at Gullane.
A final round 60 came agonizingly close to the European Tour's first ever 59. Alistair Tait on a breakthrough win for a highly touted player who has struggled, especially on links.
Here is what Stone had to say after about hickories:
Q. And you have a wedding present now of Hickory Golf Clubs. Is that correct?
BRANDON STONE: I do indeed. I don't think it's going to last until the wedding, though, if I'm brutally honest. I think I'm going to get home; I just had a Southwest green put in my house and probably picked up the purist putter I've ever seen in my entire life. It's probably got about 12 degrees of loft on it, 29 inches, but it just sits so flush. So I'm going to be on that. My fiancée was under no illusions that when she bought them for me that they wouldn't be boxed and wrapped up until the wedding. But hey, what are you going to do?
Q. How did that come about? What prompted that?
BRANDON STONE: Just drove past the store, if I'm brutally honest. I mean my fiancée is always giving me a little bit of sticks in that she can't buy someone who has everything something. So when we drove past the Hickory store on Monday afternoon, I said, that would be quite cool. So she was like, perfect. So we went and popped in there yesterday afternoon, and obviously I went to college at the University of Texas, and there was just this beautiful set of burnt orange, untreated leather-gripped Hickories, and I was like, bang, go, 400 pounds later, smiling. Been chipping in the garden at the house all week. I think that might have been helping me because that wedge has got zero bounce on it, so the moment you get a little bit of bounce you feel like you can conquer the world.
Hook 'em horns.
I wrote about Patrick Reed's interest in old clubs for Golfweek and his interest in Lietzow's work. It all started with the Hickory Challenge earlier in the week. And now we have active and very good players into hickories!
Here are some photos of the shop, Reed's set and Boris Leitzow at work:
