Ken Schofield, executive director of the European Tour from 1975 to 2004, had just the one Swede, a Gunnar Mueller, among his players at the start of his reign.
“The rise of the Swedes and the rest of the Scandinavian players who followed them has all happened in the last 50 years, and from a standing start,” Schofield said in marvel.
Heading into this week’s Players Championship, the Nordic contingent was peppering the Official World Golf Ranking. As of the past weekend, there were four Swedes in the top 100 along with three Danes, a Finn and, of course, a Norwegian by the name of Viktor Hovland. At No. 4 in the world, Hovland is behind only American Scottie Scheffler, Northern Irishman Rory McIlroy and Spaniard Jon Rahm.
Inevitably, the above facts have prompted the question as to when the Scandinavian men will move on from the one major of Sweden’s Henrik Stenson to the women’s haul of 18, with 10 of them courtesy of Sweden’s Annika Sörenstam.
“The men have a strength in numbers that they’ve never had before,” Schofield said. “Against that, though, they only play four majors per year to the women’s five. It’s a tough ask, and I’m not about to say that it’s going to happen all at once. But with so many of them getting so good, I think it’s safe to predict that we’re going to see more of them in contention from now on.”
He recalls how the Swedes were the first people in the world to go about golf differently, with the one thing he picked out above the rest their refusal to do as the U.S. and the U.K. in treating the professional and amateur arenas as separate entities. “Simply put,” he said, “they succeeded in making the game affordable, adaptable and inclusive.”
“The men have a strength in numbers that they’ve never had before.” –Ken Schofield, on Nordic rise
In terms of doing things differently, when Sweden’s Jesper Parnevik, a runner-up in the Opens of 1994 and 1997, was told off for wearing his cap back to front, he did as requested in turning it round the right way. Only then he folded the peak up and put his sponsor’s name or, when appropriate, the Ryder Cup logo, on its underside.
Parnevik also believed in eating volcanic dust. Yet, if he was a tad whacky, Sweden’s Robert Karlsson, a top-10 finisher in all four of the majors, was more so. Now 54, Karlsson used to work with psychologist Bengt Stern, who was seen as a genius in some quarters and an out-and-out eccentric in others. It was no doubt at his suggestion that Karlsson would grow his breakfast cereal in his hotel basin. “Worth a try,” he once advised GGP.
Over the years, the older golfing nations have become more inquisitive than dismissive of the Scandinavians. For years, they had taken it for granted that winter golf was out of the question in such northerly lands. Incredibly, it was well after the turn of the decade that people were still plying Stenson with the same question as to how he managed to stay fit in the winter snow.
The 2016 Open champion, whose dry humour has been among the best clubs in his bag, would say, “It was down to long months of being chased by polar bears.”
Last month, when 25-year-old Sami Välimäki finished second in the PGA Tour’s Mexico Open at Vidanta, one can only imagine that the locals watching in Puerto Vallarta might not have realized that anyone played golf in Finland.
Since Stenson is now 47, no one is expecting him to do as he did in 2016 at Royal Troon and win another Claret Jug over those Ayrshire links. It probably makes more sense to be looking for the next Scandinavian major winner from among the trio highest in the rankings – Hovland, No. 11 Ludvig Åberg of Sweden and No. 33 Nicolai Højgaard of Denmark. All of them are in their 20s and fine drivers of the ball, a prerequisite for major-winning.
Starting with the 26-year-old Hovland, he was the low amateur at the 2019 Masters and it would be odd were his name not being bandied around as someone who could do as seven previous low amateurs in going on to win the Masters itself. (Cary Middlecoff, Jack Nicklaus, Ben Crenshaw, Phil Mickelson, Tiger Woods, Sergio García and Hideki Matsuyama are the septet in question.)
Åberg, at 24, stands out the proverbial mile for having been the first player to have been selected for a Ryder Cup without having competed in a major. In less than a year as a professional, he has won on both sides of the Atlantic.
As for the 22-year-old Højgaard, he and his twin brother, Rasmus, ranked 75th, are keeping up with everything that fellow Dane Thomas Björn, the victorious European Ryder Cup captain of 2018, predicted for them several years back. Then, Björn described Nicolai, who since has become a three-time DP World Tour winner including last November’s Tour Championship, as having “the bigger game,” and Rasmus, a four-time winner, as being the more predictable of the two but the one who probably could afford to “let go” a bit more.
After one round at this year’s Players Championship, Åberg stood tied for fourth at 5-under par, with Nicolai Højgaard and Hovland tied for 88th at 1-over.
Sweden’s Alex Norén, 41, who has slipped to 64th in the rankings but was as high as eighth in June 2017, has his own thoughts on how his fellow Swedes, at least, can take the next step.
After studying the Swedish women’s records for the umpteenth time, the man labelled by New York Times headline writers as “the most unknown top player” despite winning 10 times on the DP World Tour, did a bit of digging. What he discovered was that the relevant coaches work harder earlier with the girls than they do with the guys.
“It obviously works with the girls,” he said, “so I don’t know why they don’t do it with the guys. I bet they are going to start now.”
Of all those Scandinavians whom Schofield sees as being in contention now, it is Sweden’s Åberg who is maybe favoured above Hovland as the favourite to reach for the stars.
Since he not only did the virtually impossible with his shortcut to the Ryder Cup by shooting 3,000 places up the rankings in the space of a little more than 12 months, what’s to stop him?