Brian Harman admitted he would not be letting the Claret Jug out of his sight after his dominant victory in the 151st Open Championship at Royal Liverpool.
Harman overcame miserable weather and an early stumble in the final round to claim his first major title with a six-shot victory over Jon Rahm, Jason Day, Tom Kim and Sepp Straka.
The last of the 36-year-old American's two PGA Tour victories came in 2017, the same year in which he held a one-shot lead after 54 holes of the US Open before finishing second to Brooks Koepka.
"It's pretty surreal. It really hasn't sunk in yet," Harman said as he sat next to the Claret Jug in his post-event press conference.
"I'm not going to let it out of my sight for the time being. To win what I consider the greatest prize in golf is as good as it gets.
"I'm over the moon. It was a tough last three days, it really was. Being able to get some sleep was big last night. Sleeping on a lead like that (five shots) is really difficult, so I'm proud of the way I hung in there the last couple days.
"I got off to a bad start both days and turned it around, so really happy with that.
"You know, I've always had a self-belief that I could do something like this. It's just when it takes so much time it's hard not to let your mind falter, like maybe I'm not winning again.
"I'm 36 years old. Game is getting younger. All these young guys coming out hit it a mile and they're all ready to win. Like, when is it going to be my turn again?
"It's been hard to deal with. I think someone mentioned that I've had more top 10s than anyone since 2017, so that's a lot of times where you get done, you're like, dammit, man, I had that one; it just didn't happen for whatever reason.
"To come out and put a performance like that together, start to finish, I just had a lot of control. I don't know why it was this week, but I'm very thankful that it was this week."
"After I made the second bogey a guy, when I was passing him, he said, Harman, you don't have the stones for this. That helped."
Harman held a five-shot lead after a stunning second round of 65 and revealed he took motivation from being heckled by a spectator after he bogeyed two of his first four holes on Saturday.
"After I made the second bogey a guy, when I was passing him, he said, Harman, you don't have the stones for this. That helped," Harman joked.
"It helped snap me back into (thinking) I'm good enough to do this. I'm going to do this. I'm going to go through my process, and the next shot is going to be good.
"I figured at some point, just with the weather and the scenario, you're going to hit bad shots. I knew that the way I responded to that would determine whether I'd be sitting here or not."
Rory McIlroy posted his best round of the week, a closing 68, to finish tied-6th on six-under par. Beginning the day nine off the pace, McIlroy rattled in three birdies in a row on the front nine to reach tied-2nd and offer a faint hope that he might mount a charge on the lead. But that hope fizzled out with dropped strokes early on the back nine.
Nonetheless, it's McIlroy's seventh top-10 finish from the last eight majors - the exception being this year's Masters - and he says he remains optimistic about his major chances in the near future.
"I needed to shoot 63, 64-ish. But really hard to do that in those conditions. I got off to a good start but no one's really going that low," McIlroy told RTÉ Sport's Greg Allen on Morning Ireland.
"Overall, solid performance, not spectacular. But a lot of optimism going into the rest of the year.
"Over the last two years, would I have loved to picked one of those off when I finished up there? Absolutely. But most times I tee it up, I'm right there. I can't sit here and be too frustrated.
"When you think of my performances in the majors between 2016 and 2019, it's a lot better than that. So, I'm optimistic about the future and just got to keep plugging away."
With additional reporting: PA
