Brandon Stone is a three-time DP World Tour winner who has been at the top table in Europe since 2016. He turned pro three years before that and has resume highlights such as representing South Africa at the 2016 Rio Olympics and finishing T12 at the 2018 PGA Championship.
But back in 2022, the South African was struggling for form and faced impending relegation down to the Challenge Tour - seven years after his initial promotion. Instead of heading to Q-School for one more crack at saving his status, the now-31-year-old just didn't go.
Speaking in the DP World Tour's 'Green Room' at the 2024 British Masters - an event Stone was briefly in contention at before Niklas Norgaard surged away - the South African explained what was going through his mind at the time.
He said: "Um, it was f***ing awful, if I’m honest. I remember so vividly in 2022, I looked at myself in the mirror and didn’t recognize the person. Didn’t recognize the golfer.
"Had no confidence, didn’t have an identity to my game and I didn’t even go to the last event of the season to try and save my card. I just didn’t feel like I could shoot under par. I didn’t even go to Q-School.
"I needed to earn my self-respect back."@BrandonMStone is one shot back heading into the weekend 📈#BetfredBritishMasters pic.twitter.com/mEaTvDHcmvAugust 30, 2024
"I remember so vividly knowing that if I went to Q-School, there was no way I was getting my card back. And it’s probably the lowest I’ve been in my golf career, where you feel like you can’t shoot a number. I felt like I lost the route. I felt like I lost the privilege to play on the DP World Tour because I did. I wasn’t good enough.
"And I needed to earn, not only earn my card back, but I needed to earn my respect back, my self-respect more than anything because I lost it along the way. And it’s very difficult to kind of pinpoint when that happened."
Stone explained that he pressed reset on his career and began life on the Challenge Tour with a renewed sense of determination, desperate to rightfully earn his way back to the DP World Tour.
And he managed it via six top-10s - including a runner-up finish at the B-NL Challenge Trophy - and a T11th place at the season-ending Challenge Tour Grand Final in Mallorca.
Hopeful of securing a fourth DP World Tour victory in the not-too-distant future, Stone admitted he was grateful for the journey he has been on.
He continued: "You fast-forward through it, a really stellar season for me on the Challenge Tour. Got to Mallorca [Challenge Tour Grand Final] with an opportunity to get my card back and I remember so vividly getting my card back.
“When I got back to my hotel room, I don’t know why, I just looked up and I was sitting on the edge of my bed and there was a mirror and it was the first time in over a year that I recognized myself. I recognized the player that I was. I was happy.
"I was just kind of validated in that decision to go back to the Challenge Tour and earn my right to play out here again.”
