Nordea Masters Archives - Golf Digest Middle East

Henrik Stenson has an explanation for why he’s skipping this year’s FedEx Cup Playoffs

Golf Digest Middle East — Thu, 08 Aug 2019 05:10:19 +0000

Sam Greenwood/Getty Images

By Brian Wacker
Six years after winning the FedEx Cup, Henrik Stenson will miss this year’s PGA Tour playoffs, which begin Thursday at the Northern Trust.

Though it was known since Friday when the field was announced that the Stenson, 43, wouldn’t be teeing it up at Liberty National, the reason was unclear until Tuesday. Stenson announced on Instagram that he was skipping the PGA Tour’s postseason so he could “practice and recharge [his] batteries” in his native Sweden before playing in the Scandinavian Invitation later this month.

https://www.instagram.com/p/B01G398H1y2/?utm_source=ig_embed

Formerly known as the Nordea Masters on the European Tour, the Scandinavian Invitation is scheduled for Aug. 22-25—the same week as the PGA Tour’s season-ending Tour Championship at East Lake, where $15 million will go to the season-long champ.

Stenson, who won two playoffs events, including the Tour Championship, on his way to capturing the 2013 FedEx Cup and a $10 million bonus, is 85th in points standings this year. He had to play this week at Liberty National to be able to qualify for next week’s 70-player BMW Championship.

The winner of the 2016 Open Championship at Royal Troon, Stenson has four top 10s in 18 worldwide starts in 2019 but no wins. His best finish on the PGA Tour was a T-8 at last month’s RBC Canadian Open.

Stenson isn’t the only golfer eligible to compete at this week’s Northern Trust who isn’t in the field. Paul Casey, who played last week at the Wyndham Championship and is eighth on the points list, took a pass to rest up for a run at the FedEx Cup at East Lake, and Sam Burns (broken ankle) and Rafa Cabrera-Bello (awaiting the birth of his daughter) are not in the field.

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Thorbjorn Olesen in, Ian Poulter out in latest European Ryder Cup standings

Golf Digest Middle East — Mon, 20 Aug 2018 00:55:36 +0000

Matthew Lewis/Getty Images

By Ryan Herrington
Thorbjorn Olesen’s final-round 67 wasn’t enough to earn him the title at the European Tour’s Nordea Masters on Sunday (congrats to Paul Waring, a playoff winner over Thomas Aiken). But Olesen’s fourth-place finish, with four sub-70 rounds, did push the 28-year-old from Denmark into position to grab an automatic qualifying spot for the Ryder Cup team.

Olesen is projected to move into the fourth and final spot on the World Points list that’s used to help fill out the European team that will play next month in Paris, moving past Ian Poulter and Paul Casey. He is also less than €40,000 back of Tommy Fleetwood for the final spot in the European points list.

European captain Thomas Bjorn, a fellow Dane, is close friends with Olesen and has indicated he would prefer that his countryman qualify automatically rather than require a captain’s pick and bring their friendship into the equation. Olesen is trying to oblige, having posted a win at the Italian Open in June, a runner -up at the BMW International and four top-12 finishes in his last five starts.

“I’ve been playing great for three or four months so that will probably add a bit more pressure [on Bjorn], but if I can keep grinding and working like I did this week and last week to get better the results will come,” Olesen said.

Team Europe’s automatic picks will be decided in two weeks after the European Tour’s Made in Denmark tournament, in which Olesen is scheduled to compete. “There’s always a lot of pressure when we play in Denmark and probably a little bit extra this time,” he said.

Poulter and Casey, meanwhile, will be playing in next week’s Northern Trust, the first of the PGA Tour’s FedEx Cup playoff events. Good performances will allow them both to also compete in the BMW Championship before European qualifying closes.

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European Tour winner has TWO sets of golf clubs lost by airline in 10 days

Golf Digest Middle East — Tue, 14 Aug 2018 22:26:47 +0000

By Alex Myers
Thanks to social media, we’ve been alerted to a bunch of stories involving airlines losing or damaging golf clubs. In short, pros are just like us! It happens to the best of them.

But on Tuesday, 5-time European Tour winner Thorbjorn Olesen shared an especially woeful tale of travel. Apparently, TWO of his sets of golf clubs have been lost in the past 10 days!

So the comedy continues, @British_Airways have managed to now lose 5 suitcases and 2 sets of golf clubs in 10 days!

Decided to bring my only backup set of clubs on this morning’s flight to the Nordea Masters in case my other lost set don’t arrive and BA have also now lost these! pic.twitter.com/V6QPXzAaBk

— Thorbjørn Olesen (@Thorbjornolesen) August 14, 2018

Man, is that rough. Not to mention the five suitcases. As we saw from Tiger Woods last week, golfers needed all the shirts they could get their hands on while playing in the PGA Championship in St. Louis. And overcoming that type of adversity makes Olesen’s T-56 at the season’s final major seem a lot more impressive.

Good luck to Thorbjorn at this week’s European Tour event (The Nordea Masters in Sweden). And at this rate, good luck on him having any golf clubs left by the end of the year.

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Italy’s Renato Paratore, 20, earns maiden European Tour win by one stroke in Sweden

Golf Digest Middle East — Mon, 05 Jun 2017 09:23:37 +0000

By Ryan Herrington

It’s arguable what was the more trying part of Sunday afternoon for Italy’s Renato Paratore at the Nordea Masters: Making clutch par saves on the last three holes at Sweden’s Barseback Golf and Country Club to post a closing 70 and take the clubhouse lead at 11 under or watch Chris Wood play the final hole needing a birdie to win and a par to force a playoff.

Only when Wood hit an ugly tee shot that went missing in the trees, en route to bogey 5 on the hole could Paratore rest easy in claiming his first European Tour title at just 20.

“I couldn’t be happier right now,” Paratore said. “I was one behind the leader so I thought if I played well I could win. In these tough conditions I kept a good attitude until the end.”

With the win, Paratore is expected to jump into the top 150 on the World Ranking after starting the week No. 272. He also became the youngest winner on tour since Matteo Manassero won the BMW PGA Championship in 2013.

Tied with Wood at one back was defending champion Matt Fitzpatrick, who birdied the 18th hole to shoot a 68 and set 10 under as the number the rest of the field was aiming for on this rainy Sunday.

The tight Sunday race also included George Coetzee, Jaime Donaldson and Thorborn Olesen, all of whom at one point on Sunday were part of a five-way tie for first with Paratore and Wood. Coetzee’s seven-shot deficit ultimately proved too much to overcome, but his closing 66 did set a course record as he finished in a tie for third at nine under. Donaldson, the 36-hole leader, finished with a 72 to fall to solo seventh.

Wood, the third-round leader, struggled at the outset on Sunday, making bogeys one the first, third and seventh holes, offset by birdies on the sixth and ninth, to turn in one-over 37. On the back nine, however, he’d make birdies on Nos. 10, 12 and 16 to stay near the lead.

After a bogey on the third hole, Paratore picked up momentum with birdies on the eighth and ninth, then made two more on the 12th and 14th holes. “That was a key moment,” Paratore said afterward of the birdies to close his front nine. “And the last three holes I managed three very good putts. The last three holes were very good.”

In 2014, Paratore became the third youngest player (17 years, 341 days) to claim a card at European Tour Q School. The win in Sweden came in his 83rd career start on tour and it replaces this odd fact as the highlight of Paratore’s nascent time on the European Tour: in 2015 at the Alstom Open de France, Paratore became the first player to record the same score—4—on each of the 18 holes.

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