Tyrrell Hatton has detailed the terrifying moment he was robbed at gunpoint during a golf tournament in South Africa.
World no.17 Hatton - now an accomplished PGA Tour star and set to be an integral member of Europe's Ryder Cup team in September - was an inexperienced tour pro when he was caught up in a frightening armed robbery in 2015.
Then 23, the Englishman was travelling back to his hotel after a visit to the shopping centre whilst at the Johannesburg Open when the nightmare encounter took place.
He has now recalled how he had a gun pushed into his chest after instinctively hiding his phone when two armed robbers boarded the tournament shuttle bus.
"Two guys get out and suddenly there is a gun pointed at the driver,' Hatton told the Daily Mail. "I was on my phone at the time and my first reaction was to slide it under my lap so they wouldn't see it.
"One of the guys goes round to the left and points a gun at my manager and the other one comes to me and pushes a gun against my chest. I didn't know if the gun was real or not but obviously the process of finding out isn't one you want to explore, so that was an interesting time.
"They took my watch and my wallet but all I had was 80 rand, which was about £4 at the time. My manager had done a bit of shopping in the mall and they took that, his wallet, phone, watch. I was hiding my phone, so I was lucky to just lose the watch, but yeah, that was a different kind of experience."
Hatton, meanwhile, is chasing his first major at The Masters next week and is hitting form at just the right time ahead of his trip to Augusta. Known for his explosive antics on the course, he will be hoping to banish painful memories of a 79-80 finish as the red mist descended in his final two rounds after comfortably making the cut in last year's event.
"I have played six Masters and my best finish is tied 18th and I missed the cut a couple of times," he added. "It's a place where I've struggled. I've played all right at courses that don't suit my eye, so there is no reason I couldn't have a great week. I'll go there again and like every other week will try my best."
