By Kent Gray
Another season was consigned to history at the DP World Tour Championship but there was a little more fun to be had for some of the European Tour’s biggest names on Monday.

Major champions Henrik Stenson and Danny Willett and former world No.1 Lee Westwood were among nine Audemars Piguet ambassadors who teed it up in the Swiss watchmakers annual Golf Invitational at The Els Club Dubai

They, along with 72 watch collectors and golf aficionados from around the world, were hosted by the Swiss Haute Horlogerie manufacturer’s CEO François-Henry Bennahmias.

Andy Sullivan and former world No.1 Lee Westwood

Golf Youtubers Me and My Golf also joined the fun and helped the watch enthusiasts to improve their skills.

Audemars Piguet has assembled one of the world golf’s finest ambassadorial teams. In addition to the nine ambassadors present in Dubai, the collective includes Wesley Bryan, Patrick Cantlay, Bud Cauley, Darren Clarke, Paul Dunne, Branden Grace, Emiliano Grillo, Viktor Hovland, Miguel Ángel Jiménez, Andrew Johnston, Renato Paratore, Ian Poulter, Xander Schauffele, Vijay Singh, Kiwi trick-shot specialist Tania Tare and Peter Uihlein.

Earlier this year AP also brought together nine of its pro golfers and rising DJ/Producer Max Styler with the mission to redefine the sound of golf. Gathered in a colourful studio, Bryan, Cantlay, Grace, Grillo, Hatton, Schauffele, Singh, Tare and Willett played together as one band to create a unique track by using their wide range of shots and tricks. You can watch the “Harmony & Mastery” movie, released earlier this year on Audemars Piguet’s website here and on the AP Golf Instagram account @audemarspiguetgolf.

Matt Wallace and Henrik Stenson

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By Kent Gray
At the height of his plummet from 2016 masters champion to serial cut-misser, Danny Willett needed a cocktail of painkillers and anti-inflammatories just to get through the day. There were times when a psychiatrist’s sofa probably should have been prescribed to given the even more excruciating emotional toll the physical symptoms were taking on the golf course. That’s saying something because the back-pain was crippling.

“I was on paras [Paracetamol] and Co-codamol and Bruphen. You know it doesn’t seem much but then you think, oh actually, even just taking four Paracetamol, four Bruphen and a couple of Co-Codamol, it’s quite a lot,” the Englishman says of the pharmaceutical relief he needed.

“It’s something that you shouldn’t be taking all the time because it’s only preventative. So I couldn’t ever really tell you how much pain I was in but, yeah, the weeks off, I wasn’t able to do a great deal of stuff. Picking the kids up, bending over was painful which was the main things really because that was in my lower back.”

Willett’s sobering revelation came a day after he’d emerged from his personal horror show by clinching the 10th DP World Tour Championship last November; less than a year later the 31-year-old has changed the public’s perception of him – again – with a convincing win in the European Tour’s flagship BMW PGA Championship on Sunday. 

Luke Walker/Getty Images
Willett salutes the Wentworth galleries on his march to victory at the BMW PGA Championship.

Rewind to November, and the two-stroke victory over Patrick Reed and Matt Wallace at Jumeirah Golf Estates came a full 953 days of lows after that Augusta National high and enabled Willett to crystallise his journey back from the depths of sudden despair. After finishing second in the 2016 Race to Dubai standings for the second successive year off the back of his major breakthrough, Willett tumbled to 96th in 2017 with just two top 10s. His shocking decline was even more pronounced on the PGA Tour where he finished 224th in the FedEx Cup standings with four missed cuts and two injury-enforced withdrawals – including at the U.S. Open after an embarrassing opening round of 81 at Erin Hills – in 11 largely forgettable starts. Indeed, there wasn’t much to write home about stateside last season either; four missed cuts and another “WD” as he amassed a miserly $84,000 while struggling with a shoulder complaint that was a direct result of trying to compensate for his back.

“The back end of 2016 beginning of 2017 I was injured pretty bad but I was playing a lot of golf because I’d agreed to play a lot of golf. When I won the Masters you sign up to play wherever in the world and go travelling and play the golf tournaments that I’d already agreed.

“But the body wasn’t in a position, the mind wasn’t in position, the game definitely wasn’t in a position to kind of be travelling that much and playing that much. And I probably stretched myself a little bit too far and started to not enjoy it. Ultimately you kind of spiral down quickly and yeah, we got to a pretty low point where golf wasn’t really fun and we were in a lot of pain.

“It’s a very lonely sport, isn’t it. It takes a long time to play, you’re out there for four or five hours speaking to yourself most of the time. So yeah, it’s been a bumpy old road for the last couple of years.”

You often have altercations with the people that are closest to you. She [wife nicole] sees you at your  worst… completely stripped back.

The turning point came at the Maybank Championship in February last year where Willett missed the cut but played pain-free for the first time. Willett credits a complete swing overhaul overseen by Sean Foley, Tiger Wood’s former coach, for that blessed moment in Kuala Lumpur when he finally went “clean” after five years of pill popping.

“As soon as I was sat down with Foles, I was open to do anything. We were gonna completely unravel everything that had happened and we started again. And I put full faith and full trust in the work that I was gonna do with him and I haven’t really wavered off that since we started. I think that in itself takes a lot of courage, to give up everything that you were doing and say right, we’ll start again and go from there.”

Something had to give after Willett’s seemingly inexplicably slide down the world rankings from a career-high ninth after his major breakthrough in 2016, to the relative wilderness of 332nd spot. Now back inside the top 50, Willett admitted it had been tough playing in front of folk who didn’t fully understand the extent of his back injury.

“That’s where the mental side comes into play… if you’re injured and you can’t make the moves then there’s nothing you can do. It’s a tough place to be in because you’re working hard, but the harder you work the more physio you need ‘cause you’re not making the correct moves. Do you not work so that you’re not in pain? But then you’re not gonna get better. So that’s why I needed such a drastic change and that’s why it’s taken as long as it as.”

Through it all Willett has drawn strength from his family, particularly wife Nicole, mother to his two sons Zachariah, 3, and 14-month-old Noah.

“She takes the brunt of most things whether it be good or bad. It’s always the same thing isn’t it, you often have altercations with the people that are closest to you. She sees me more than anybody else in the world, she sees you at your best, she sees you at your worst, she sees you completely stripped back when no one’s there and there’s no cameras on you, you’re just being you.

Willett poses with his Green Jacket the morning after the 2016 Masters at Augusta (Getty Images)

“She’s been awesome. To have the family that I’ve got at home is one of the main things I think that helps get through these stages because when I look back now and think about bad days when I was playing poorly and injured, they were pretty poor days. But you look now and …as long as you’re healthy, the kids are always gonna be smiling and it kind of puts things into perspective.”

Whether Willett kicks on from his fifth European Tour win at JGE is a moot point. That he’s made it back at all, given the pain he’s endured in the past two or so years, is a remarkable achievement in itself. It’s not quite Tiger-fused back redemption, but there were similar dark days from which Willett admits he never thought he’d recover.

Still, it didn’t stop the inevitable question about this year’s major championships. Can you win another one of the bigs?

“I have no idea,” was Willett’s refreshingly honest answer. “We’re fortunate that we’re in all the majors for the next few years, so you can plan around them. Yeah, if things keep going the way they are, I’m going to look forward to getting back to Augusta in April actually with a golf game that can get around the golf course.”

This feature first appeared in the April 2109 edition of Golf Digest Middle East. 

The post How Danny Willett escaped golf’s doldrums appeared first on Golf Digest Middle East.

Not only did 64 watch collectors from around the world enjoy playing alongside 16 of Audemars Piguet’s big name golf ambassadors at famed Lake Nona Golf and Country Club, they were then invited back to Henrik Stenson’s gaff for a slap up dinner.

The special treat included a visit of the 2016 Open Champion’s trophy room which, according to the AP’s official media release, “put a smile on everybody’s face.” We bet.

Here’s a Instagram post from the Iceman marking the occasion with New Zealand trick shot artist Tania Tare:

Great day @lakenonagcc with @audemarspiguetgolf and @taniatare63 the trick shot girl. #APGolf

A post shared by Henrik Stenson (@henrikstenson) on May 7, 2018 at 10:58pm PDT

The 28-year-old Kiwi, who was unveiled as the latest AP golf ambassador at the event, was playing the mutual appreciation game on social media, pictured alongside golf trickster turned PGA Tour star Wesley Bryan, another newbie to the AP “Dream Team”:

@audemarspiguetgolf with a little side of @18birdiesapp ?? @meandmygolf @wesleybryangolf #APInvitational #APFamily #HenrikStensonsHouse ?

A post shared by Tania Tare (@taniatare63) on May 7, 2018 at 4:39pm PDT

That’s a hashtag – #HenrikStensonsHouse – most of us can only ever dream of.  The New Zealander is certainly living the dream. If you’ve never heard of Tare, try refreshing your social feeds or simply enjoy a small taster of her incredible skills here:

Proud to be part of the #APFamily ?? #APGolf @audemarspiguetgolf

A post shared by Tania Tare (@taniatare63) on May 7, 2018 at 6:20am PDT

We can’t hit a hybrid that straight off the deck, let along juggle off the crown of such a tiny clubhead. Actually, if we’re honest, we can’t even juggle with a wedge.

Here’s something else we can’t do with a wedge:

Sundayze at Troon! ? #pumagolf #cobragolf #oncoregolf #18birdiesapp

A post shared by Tania Tare (@taniatare63) on Apr 22, 2018 at 6:44pm PDT

It’s little wonder AP signed Tare up. Among the other big names enjoying Stenson’s hospitality were 2016 Masters winner Danny Willett, Vijay Singh and Miguel Angel Jiménez, Englishmen Ian Poulter and Tyrrell Hatton, Argentinian Emiliano Grillo, Americans Peter Uihlein and Bud Cauley, as well as new ambassador’s Xander Schauffele and Bryan.

Related: Meet Euro honed PGA Tour rookie Peter Uihlein

Audemars Piguet has built an impressive stable of PGA Tour and European Tour stars. In addition to the members present in Orlando, Patrick Cantlay, Darren Clarke, Paul Dunne, Branden Grace, Andrew Johnston, Renato Paratore, Andy Sullivan, Matt Wallace, Lee Westwood and Bernd Wiesberger complete the AP  “Golf Dream Team”.

Audemars Piguet ambassadors (from left to right): Danny Willett, Vijay Singh, Xander Schauffele, Andy Proudman, Miguel Angel Jimenez, François Bennahmias (Audemars Piguet CEO), Piers Ward, Tyrrell Hatton, Ian Poulter, Bud Cauley, Tania Tare, Curtis Luck, Wesley Bryan, Emiliano Grillo, Henrik Stenson, Marty Dou, Peter Uihlein.

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Peter Uihlein has Boston in his blood. A Red Sox baseball fan first and foremost, he loves his New England Patriots as well and doesn’t mind admitting to a wee man crush on superstar quarterback Tom Brady. The Boston Celtics’ current run to the NBA playoffs is exciting too.

It makes the sports-mad 28-year-old, well, an All-American kind of guy, matching the status of his collegiate career at Oklahoma State University. Yet Uihlein isn’t your typical American, at least not your normal U.S. touring professional that is.

He may hail from New Bedford, Massachusetts, and now reside in Jupiter, Florida, but Uihlein is acutely aware of where he’s come from and it’s not just the privileged upbringing afforded the son of recently retired Acushnet (Titleist/Footjoy) CEO Wally Uihlein.

Uihlein has seemed destined for the PGA Tour since his Oklahoma State University days where he won the Ben Hogan award as the country’s best player in his junior year and spent 52 weeks as the world’s top ranked amateur after winning the U.S. Amateur on his 21st birthday.

Related: Five minutes with PGA Tour rookie Peter Uihlein

He’s there now, of course, plying his trade on the world’s richest circuit courtesy of winning the first of last season’s finals events on the secondary Web.com Tour. He doing okay too, 56th in the FedEx Cup standings as we went to press with a T-10 at the CIMB Classic in Malaysia and breakout T-5 at the WGC-HSBC Championship in Shanghai before Christmas contributing chiefly to the $615,000 he’d banked in eight starts, even with three missed cuts.

But he’s competed primarily on the Europe Tour since turning professional in 2012 and will never forget or forego his status.

“I don’t like when people say is the European Tour a stepping stone for the PGA Tour because it’s not,” said Uihlein on the sidelines of the Audemars Piguet Invitational at The Els Club, Dubai the day after he’d earned a share of 10th place at the DP World Tour Championship to finish 17th in season-long the Race to Dubai standings.

“It’s a great tour, you play great courses, you play great events. In my mind it’s not a stepping stone, it’s a great place to come out, hone your craft and be ready when you go to the PGA Tour and be ready to go out and compete and win.

“I don’t think I’d have been able to do that just staying in America and just turning pro. I mean I was so immature, I was in a bubble, I had no idea what I was doing and to be able to come over to Europe, play on the Challenge Tour and then play a few years on the European Tour and get my feet wet, just grow as a person, and as a player, was something I don’t know if I could have been able to do on the PGA Tour.

“There’s no way I could have been able just to keep my card, let alone contend, I wouldn’t have been anywhere ready enough. I still want to continue to support the tour because they’ve been great to me throughout the years. It’s been fantastic.”

Indeed. Uihlein finished 13th in the 2013 Race to Dubai standings after capturing the Madeira Islands Open, an event co-sanctioned by the Challenge and European Tours. The win earned Uihlein full status on the main tour and he cashed in by clinching Rookie-of-the-Year honours that year.

Last season wasn’t bad either, especially considering the circumstances. There were six top-10s including a runner-up finish (by a shot) to eventual Race to Dubai champion Tommy Fleetwood at the HNA Open de France which netted his largest European Tour payday of €693,879 en-route to a season haul of €1.63 million.

Uihlein was playing on a medical exemption after a wrist injury curtailed his 2016 campaign to just 14 events in Europe. It necessitated a swing revamp which the 1.85m-tall American entrusted to Justin Parsons. Uihlein has known the Dubai-based Northern Irishman since he turned professional after a recommendation from the famed Harmon family with whom he’d worked as an amateur.

Audemars Piguet Ambassadors (left to right) Tyrrell Hatton, Andy Sullivan, Branden Grace, Danny Willett, Lee Westwood, Ian Poulter, Peter Uihlein, Darren Clarke, Bernd Wiesberger

“The thing that I like about JP is he strikes me as a guy who is always learning, he’s always trying to get better himself from a teaching standpoint…he doesn’t teach a method,” Uihlein said. “So for me when I was coming back from the wrist surgery and I had an idea in my mind of what I wanted to do, I felt like he was going to be the best possibility for me because he would help grow with me as well as give me a different perspective of things I was doing prior. He’s been great, it’s been a very good relationship.”

Parsons worked on turning Uihlein’s natural draw into a power fade, which has taken some time to get used to.

“It was more just visually; I guess from a comfort point of view. You stand on a tee and you’re just used to hitting a draw and then you stand up and you hit a fade, it just changes sight lines. Getting over that, playing your home courses and playing with your buddies gave me confidence to go into a tournament and feel good about were my game was at and where it could go.”

Uihlein hopes it leads to a major and maybe even a Ryder Cup appearance. So what will it take to achieve those career dreams?

“For me personally, I think it’s more like a technical thing where I’ve just got to get a little more consistent with my technique and the way my body structure moves and things like that. That’s just all part of the process of where we want to get to and I know I keep saying it, [2017] was obviously a very good year, but it was just a step in the right direction of where I want to get too. It was the first time I felt like I haven’t taken two steps back to get to one step forward if that makes sense.

“I’m a perfectionist so I get kind of uptight a little bit, a little too high strung and that kind of beats me up a little more than it should. So just learning ‘water off a ducks back’. DJ’s a great example, he never seems flustered even if he’s going the wrong way. So just keep trying to build on things like that is probably where I need to improve the most.”

I’m a perfectionist and that kind of beats me up more than it should.

Talking of Dustin Johnson and pals like Brooks Koepka, the Ryder Cup is obviously a lure but all part of that one-step-at-a-time process.

“The U.S. team is very deep, there’s a lot of really, really, really good American players right now so if you make that team it’s very impressive. So yeah, I’d love to make it obviously and it’s definitely a goal but I got to kind of get my feet wet, get my feet through the door on the PGA Tour first and then worry about that kind of thing.”

The journey, originating from Boston and continually detouring via Europe, continues.

The post The Big Interview: Meet Euro honed PGA Tour rookie Peter Uihlein appeared first on Golf Digest Middle East.

“Yeah that was a big week [placing fifth at the WGC-HSBC Championships in Shanghai last October] and CIMB as well was a nice top 10, so those two weeks were big for me in terms of the FedEx Cup standpoint and pushing onto to start of next season and PGA Tour. It was nice to get up there with Brooks and DJ and Stenson and those boys, Rose I think was up there. So it was nice to get your name on the board and hang with those guys.

I first met JP [Justin Parsons] when I first turned pro and came out here. It was right before I went off to India to play my first event I came out to practice here because at the time I was working with Butchy and he said, like, you know, they have a great set-up at the Els Club Dubai, Justin Parsons is out there and he’ll look after you. So we came out, meet JP, we chatted a little bit and when I would kind of have a week off or I was playing somewhere like South Africa and had a week off and came to Dubai instead of going home, spent a week out here, JP helped me out a little bit with my swing.

We’re on the same page the majority of the time. We may just kind of dance around different things but eventually we get to where we want to get too. It’s not much time really. I’ll send him a swing and he’ll give me a three minute video breaking it down and that’s all I need. I don’t need somebody who is going to be over my shoulder at all times.

The thing that I liked about JP is he strikes me as a guy who is always learning, he’s always trying to get better himself from a teaching standpoint so he’s not …he doesn’t teach a method. So for me when I was coming back from the wrist surgery and I kind of had an idea in my mind of what I wanted to do, I felt like he was going to be the best possibility for me because he would help grow with me as well as teach me things and kind of give me a different perspective of things I was doing prior. He’s been great, it’s been a very good relationship.

Justin Parsons works with Peter Uihlein.

It’s going to be tough to balance both tours, it’ll be tricky because unless you get into the top 50, it’s tough. I’m going to play…Wentworth, French, Irish, Scottish and then if everything kind of goes where I want it to I’ll still have the [WGC] Matchplay, I’m in Mexico, I’ll have all the majors, so I’ll still have all my events to keep my European Tour ranking ….you know the FedEx Cup ends very early, that ends and I think there’s still three of four more events in Europe so I could still play the back end of those and make a push for Race to Dubai …you can finish off the season playing these last three or four events…it’s a great schedule.

Audemars Piguet Ambassadors (left to right) Tyrrell Hatton, Andy Sullivan, Branden Grace, Danny Willett, Lee Westwood, Ian Poulter, Peter Uihlein, Darren Clarke, Bernd Wiesberger

You want one word? Okay. Augusta? Pristine. Shinnecock? It’s a beast. Carnoustie? Nasty! Bellrieve? Is that where [this year’s PGA Championship] its at? I don’t know anything about it so I got nothing. Le Golf National?  like Paris, I like that golf course, that’s a test, a proper golf course.

Yeah, I’ve been with Audemars Piguet since 2014. They’ve been great. I’ve had a couple of rough years with a few injuries and they’ve stuck by me and been a great relationship and I think something I’ve always loved. I mean the first watch I’ve ever owned is when I signed a deal with them so that was pretty cool. All the guys there [at AP], they’re phenomenal so yeah it’s the best deal going for sure.

GDME: I hope with that Audemars Piguet timepiece you’ve never missed a tee time? No never, surprisingly. No, I’m one of those guys too, when I’m home, I always know if my buddies want to go to dinner by seven, we’re always there early, we’re there 6.50, but they don’t show up till 7.30 so it’s annoying as can be. But no, I’ve never missed a tee time and I don’t like to be …our college coach engrained that in us early so I’m pretty good at that.

It wasn’t so bad [the spell on the side lines following a wrist injury]. I spent more time with Chels [Chelsea Gates] my girlfriend and we got a second dog so we had two dogs at home so that kind of eased the process a little bit. I was more on dog duty, wake up in the middle of the night and take them out for walks and things like that so ….Bagger [As in the golf movie The Legend of Bagger Vance], just over three, and Breyer, just over two, no relation, we just got lucky, they hit it off straight away, so I was in dog duty a couple of months but it was great I loved it, it gave me a nice escape, kept my mind off it…instead of being frustrated that you couldn’t do anything, at least it gave me some piece of mind.”

I like my sports teams, I like my [the NFL’s New England] Patriots, Tom Brady, I like my [baseball’s] Red Sox, [the NBA’s] Celtics now. We also like talking about our dogs, we love, Chels and I, we love animals, we love dogs, she loves cats, we just like all kinds of animals I guess so we’re big animal activists.

I’m happy for him [Uihlein’s father Wally who retired as CEO of Acushnet (Titleist/Footjoy) on Jan.1]. I’m just curious to see what he’s going to do, I mean he’s always working so…

If he’s going to retire, I mean, I feel sorry for my mom because he’s gong to be in her hair all the time. Nah, I mean he’s had an unbelievable run, an unbelievable career he’s had, he’s changed the game really, what Titleist has done from a technological standpoint from golf ball to equipment, to being able to be the No.1 ball forever, you just can’t really see it changing as well, so yeah, the run he’s had has been incredible so I’m happy for him and he’s earned…I mean if anybody’s earned a retirement he has.

One of the things I did really well this year is I played when I wanted too and where I wanted too. It might not have been logistically the right thing, for example, I played the SA Open and Abu Dhabi [last year] and skipped Qatar. So I went home after Abu Dhabi and then went back out for Dubai whereas people ask why didn’t you just play Abu Dhabi, Qatar, Dubai and I was like, I don’t want to, I wanted to play SA Open because it’s a great golf course and I played well there [Uihlein finished T-7].

I’ve kind of learned and [his manager’s] learned as well, they can’t really tell me where to play, because if they tell me where to play, I won’t play well, I just wont like it. One of the things I’ve done this year is I’ve played where I wanted to play, when I wanted to play and I felt like it helped me be a lot more prepared and a lot more ready. After I won [the Web.com Tour’s first playoff event in Ohio last season to gain his PGA Tour card], I really wanted to go back to Europe and play the British Masters and play Switzerland, but I had to play those [three other playoff] events and I didn’t play well consequently. So I don’t want to blame it on that but it was the only time this year I felt like I was in a position where I played where I might not have wanted too. My mind was set on it. Looking back on it, if I knew Chesson [eventual Web.com Tour No.1 Chesson Hadley] was going to have the run like he was going to have, I wouldn’t have had any issues packing up and going to Europe and played a few. But at the time I couldn’t do that and I had to play them…but hindsight’s 20-20 isn’t it? I think that would be a great superpower, hindsight.”

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The 40-year-old Swede sat down after hosting a golf day for watch sponsor Audemars Piguet at The Els Club, Dubai, little more than 24 hours after clinching his second European Tour Player-of-the-Year title courtesy of a T9 finish at the DP World Tour Championship at nearby Jumeirah Golf Estates.

Stenson touched on subjects as diverse as his love for Game of Thrones and football matches with his children, and reveals Englishman Justin Rose as his best buddy on tour “despite him beating me at the Olympics”.

The Rio Games silver medallist goes on to share fitness and course management tips with outgoing editor Robbie Greenfield and discusses his burgeoning course design business during the in-depth interview.

Discussion inevitably turned to the 145^th Open Championship and the world No.4’s “extraordinary” Sunday afternoon duel with Phil Mickelson at Royal Troon. Stenson describes it as a “boyhood dream come true” and credits Lefty for spurring him on to his historic 10-birdie final round 63.

“Pretty much you have to be two to Tango, right, so without Phil to push me to the edge I don’t think I would have played as well as I did… so he certainly has his part in it,” Stenson said of Mickelson’s brilliant closing 65 and their battle which Jack Nicklaus and eventual winner Tom Watson have since conceded out shone their epic Duel in the Sun at Turnberry in 1977.

SEE ALSO:
Stenson a showman to the end

“It’s a very humbling experience to be mentioned in reference with the Duel in the Sun from the 70s and to be receiving messages from those players that they thought it was an even better match this time around.

“I’ve seen the full coverage from that Sunday and it’s pretty pleasing I have to say. It was an extraordinary day. Managed to break some records that have been there for a while. You never know, they might be washed away next year but they might stand for the next 30 years as well so there was certainly some added bonus to not just winning The Open, which was great in itself, but to set those records…”

Stenson again paid tribute to his great, late mate Mike Gerbich, the Emirates Golf Club stalwart who sadly passed away the week of The Open after losing his battle with cancer.

“Someone put a message up ‘Go win The Open for Mike’ and I was like, yeah, I’m going to try my hardest,” Stenson recalls.

“You know, it might have been the one thing that made a little bit of difference there. When you play for someone else you play with a purpose and I’m sure that helped me. If there is divine intervention that was certainly one of those cases.” – Stenson on his late mate Mike Gerbich

“We always kept in contact and he was always very encouraging and he was always there whether you were shooting 75s and missing cuts, or shooting 65s and winning tournaments. He was always there with a text or a message, just a great supporter and a great friend. He is missed but at the same time you want to remember him for all the great things he did and for such a great person he was. He’s still there with us in spirit.”

In his final question, Stenson was asked to finish the sentence: “Henrik Stenson in 2017 will…”

The reply was as you’d expect. But Stenson admitted his hopes of adding a second major championship to his glittering CV is now much easier said than done given the way his life became even crazier after his record-shattering triumph at Royal Troon.

“Yeah, it’s a bit more busy, a [few] more things to do but at the same time I think I’ve been progressing over the years in managing my time, and managing my calendar and becoming better at saying no,” he said.

“[There’s] only so much time in a day and it’s easy to be going away from what’s your core business and that’s still practicing and competing and playing good golf. “

Stenson admitted on Sunday that he never imagined topping his “Double-double” in 2013 when he become the first player to win the FedEx Cup and Race to Dubai as well as both season ending Tour Championships. But the past year has proven there’s every chance of more magic to come from the Iceman, as tough as it will be for the Swede to topple a brilliant 2016.

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