"It's unimaginably special" - Oman emotions

The drama was endless and the emotions were raw as four players managed to climb inside the crucial top 15 in the Road to Oman Rankings at the season-ending NBO Golf Classic Grand Final. For Joachim B Hansen, Jeff Winther, Callum Shinkwin and Brandon Stone, it was pure joy. Here’s what they felt, in their own words…

<strong>Joachim B Hansen (from 17th to fifth)</strong>

“My emotions are big now, it’s just what I wanted. Of course, I wanted to win the last tournament but coming second and finishing with three birdies, I couldn’t have asked for more.

“It meant a lot to me, puts me up to fifth in the Rankings and I’ve earned a lot of money this week, so it feels good.

“On the back nine I got to nine under and I thought, is this enough? So I said, no, I’ve got to make two birdies coming in and they came a bit late but I finished off with another on the last.

“How I work has changed this year, I work a lot harder than I used to, I’m a lot more serious about it, and it’s definitely paid off for me now.”

<strong>Jeff Winther (18th to 11th)</strong>

“I’m over the moon. I just spoke my wife and she couldn’t even make a sentence, it was fantastic!

“I tried not to look at the leaderboards but you can’t really avoid it, but I played phenomenal today, didn’t really make any mistakes, and I have a brilliant caddie who was a rock beside me.

“I didn’t have any nerves at all today, which definitely helped. I was just trying to get a good round in because I knew a five or six under par round was probably going to cut it. I knew I needed to finish in at least the top seven this week.

“Playing with Sebastien Gros was great. He’s a really good guy and we just tried to have as much fun as possible. I tried just to block everything out this week, and I’m quite good at that, so it was fantastic.”

<strong>Callum Shinkwin (23rd to 13th)</strong>

“It was nerve-wrecking, Nacho hit a nice putt at the last to make me sweat even more but I eventually finished 13th so I’m happy.

“I played great all day and obviously Gouveia’s had the season of his life, he’s obviously finished great too, as did Joachim B Hansen, finishing with three birdies to knock me down to 13th so fare play to them but I’m happy with my finish.

“I planned my schedule around all the big ones and I performed well in all of them and that’s what counts on this tour, if you can do that you’ll move up and that’s what I’ve done.”

<strong>Brandon Stone (19th to 14th)</strong>

“It hasn’t fully sunk in yet. It feels great considering the downs I’ve had this year but euphoria at the moment. To play the way that I did at the weekend, to shoot eight under at the weekend with those weather conditions was incredible.

“I’m going to savour it and get very drunk tonight! It was obviously extremely nerve wrecking, but on Thursday evening we said if we could get it to ten under par on Saturday afternoon it’ll be a good score.

“I played really well on the third day. Today I started like a house on fire, hit a few nervy shots on the back nine but hit a few awesome shots and a few awesome putts and to go 68, 68 at the weekend is more than I could have asked for.

“Heading into this year, my goal was to finish top 15 and to achieve that goal is incredible. It really is something special, to fulfil a life goal is unimaginably special to me.”

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