Want to know the real Sam Brazel, the latest Australian to emerge from the golfing wilderness and win a worldwide event?
Better start trawling the waterways of the northern rivers rather than shoving a microphone in the face of a stunned journeyman straight off the 18th green after a life-changing win.
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Brazel claims maiden Tour triumph
Unheralded Australian Sam Brazel claims a shock win at the Hong Kong Open on the European Tour. The 37-year-old maintained a steely focus after a brilliant approach shot set up what would be only the second birdie of the day on the difficult 18th, leading to the biggest win of his career.
"He's very much a homebody," his coach Richard Mercer laughed. "He's got a dog that he treats like a human, he loves his lawn and he's a great fly fisherman. He goes up into the gorges of Armidale and will spend three or four days camping and going into cabins just hunting trout. He just loves it."
Which is why not even the lure of a night in Lan Kwai Fong with a near half-million dollar cheque stuffed in his back pocket could drag the 37-year-old journeyman off a scheduled trip straight back to Lismore on Monday, the only place he wanted to celebrate.
"It feels amazing. I'm speechless. What a win. I feel very privileged to be playing here first of all and then ecstatic to win," he said after claiming the Hong Kong Open, which is a European Tour event. Â
"It's been a long time coming. I've been playing good but it's been a bit of a struggle with the old irons but I got set up with a new set of clubs, and it's all sort of turned around. This is the fruit."
Brazel broke down when thanking his family and friends for all the support he has received over the many hard years.
"Thanks for all the support," he said, before his voice cracked and tears started to flow. "Many years ... it's been a bit of a tough ride, but we're here."
![Thrilled: Sam Brazel's win in Hong Kong gives him a two-year exemption on the European Tour.](/web/20161213101701im_/http://www.theage.com.au/content/dam/images/g/t/8/v/l/6/image.related.articleLeadwide.620x349.gt9461.png/1481522703848.jpg)
The trophy stowed away in his luggage, Brazel was on the verge of throwing it all in a few years ago. And then even had the same thoughts as recently as a few weeks ago.
"Even before the [Australian PGA on the] Gold Coast [where he finished 15th] he was thinking, 'I've made good money, but it's not worth being away from home so much'," said Brazel's girlfriend Helen Brand, a pharmacist in Lismore.
"He was really thinking about it again and then he had a good week at the Gold Coast. I guess it was always in the back of his mind. What price do you put on being away from home?"
He can stew on that conundrum over some Christmas turkey, given his Hong Kong win carries a two-year exemption on the European Tour and the bucketload of million-dollar tournaments he now has a walk-up start in.
Once described as a nervous Nellie down the stretch, Brazel's ice-cool approach to eight feet on the last and subsequent birdie putt was enough for Australian golf to now boast another winner on one of the world's biggest tours.
And Brand knew how calm Brazel was after trading text messages before he started his round on Sunday.
"And he will use any excuse to go fly fishing," she joked.
But Brazel's road to his overnight success has had more downs than ups, the death of his partner in 2009 after she contracted bacterial meningitis while holidaying in Europe took a particular toll.
"It took him a long time – probably nearly six or seven years out of his life – where he just could not focus on the game," Mercer said. "It just knocked him around. He met his new girlfriend and it has settled him.
"He's been working that hard to achieve something like this and when it comes along you get into another zone and you can't work out how good it is. It's going to take him a while to settle down, but I'm going to get him straight back into it so he doesn't lose his mojo."
Brazel's northern NSW base was buzzing long after several parties wound up in Lismore on Sunday night following his groundbreaking win, which catapulted him from a world ranking of 480 to 147.
The win was all the sweeter given close friend and Rio Olympian Scott Hend, a former Hong Kong Open winner, was one of the first to mob Brazel after his victory at the Hong Kong Golf Club.
"This is his base when he's not on the Asian Tour and he practises and plays here," Lismore Workers Golf Club professional Peter Jaeger said. "The members are all really pumped because they know him quite well.
"I used to joke to him when he was in that [crossroads] position that, 'if you don't do that what are you going to do? Become a club pro like me? You better go practise harder'. He worked a couple of shifts for me and don't worry he went out and started practising harder."​
- with AAP
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