Scottish Open champion forced to cancel flights live in press conference after dramatic win
Chris Gotterup won the Scottish Open against a field packed with talent from the PGA Tour on Sunday - and had to change his plans for next week as a result of securing a spot in the Open
NORTH BERWICK, Scotland — New Scottish Open champion Chris Gotterup pulled out his phone during his post-round press conference to hastily cancel his flights after punching his ticket to the Open Championship.
American Gotterup won at the Renaissance Club on the Scottish coast in the most dramatic of circumstances, including being put on a shot clock after a time warning. Fighting against Grand Slam king Rory McIlroy and Marco Penge, Gotterup produced the performance of his career so far to claim his second victory on the PGA Tour.
Winning brings him a $1.57 million prize purse and, crucially, a spot in the final major championship of the year, where he will go up against the likes of McIlroy, Scottie Scheffler and defending champion Xander Schauffele.
After an emotional on course interview with CBS, where the elation fully took over and he had to fight back tears, Gotterup brought his brand new trophy to the media tent for his press conference
He admitted he had some plans to change and would be headed straight to Portrush, Northern Ireland. Pulling out his mobile phone from his pocket, he said: "Yeah, I might do it right now in front of you. It's great.
"I'm happy to be playing my first Open next week. It's great. There's nothing other to say than I'm excited to go up to Portrush and get back to playing some tournament golf next week.
"But I'm happy I'm not flying from here to California, that's for sure."
He added: "It won't settle in until everything kind of works out. We'll be going up to Portrush tomorrow. Be right back at it.
"It will be nice when I get back home at some point and really settle in and process all that happened today.
READ MORE: Chris Gotterup in controversial finale with Rory McIlroy as Scottish Open rules official interjectsREAD MORE: Rory McIlroy suffers Scottish Open heartbreak as Chris Gotterup wins despite talking toFor his part, McIlroy took the disappointment of missing out on the win in his stride, fronting up to the media immediately after signing his scorecard.
For McIlroy, who is quite possibly already in Northern Ireland having made plans to travel quickly after Sunday’s tournament ended regardless of the result, his focus is on getting back in major championship contention.
"I feel like my game got a little better each and every day," he said.
"I controlled my ball flight, some of the iron shots I hit, especially today, sort of the 5-iron into 12 after Chris hit it in close.
"Iron play was great. I feel like I did enough good things off the tee.
"Everything is in a really good spot and I'm happy with how my game progressed as the week went on."