Never mind what a difference a day makes. How about a year? Almost 12 months ago Henrik Stenson left Royal Troon as the winner of the 145th Open after an astounding final round of 63 — eight under par — that included ten birdies.
Stenson walked off the 18th green with an arm around Phil Mickelson, the 2013 Open champion, the two men being the last players on the golf course on that dank Scottish afternoon. Mickelson, too, had played one of the rounds of his life, a 65 without a bogey, but lost by three strokes as he and Stenson separated themselves from their pursuers by the width of the Clyde. JB Holmes came third, 14 strokes behind Stenson.
You would think that victory in the oldest of the four major championships would set up Stenson, now 41, for a year of hosannas, wouldn’t you? Hail the Open champion. Watch him hit some bone-rattling irons and, using his three-wood, club the ball way down the fairway from the tee.
Note how he remained poker-faced on the golf course while off it he was continually smiling and playing practical jokes. See him go jet-skiing with the Claret Jug in his hands. Stenson knows how to celebrate as well as he knows how to play golf.
“I think we had a pretty good evening the first evening,” he said yesterday. “To be able to share it with some family and friends. And it was French — it was bubbly and it tasted rather good coming out of the Claret Jug, I can tell you.
Advertisement
“It’s an iconic trophy to bring around the world. I think the jet-ski is the goofiest thing I’ve done with it but I’ve made an official promise that, if I ever win it again, I’m going sky-diving because that thought scares me a little bit. That won’t stop me from trying to win it again though.”
But his reign as Open champion hasn’t been all roses. “It’s been the busiest year of my life and also the best of my professional career,” Stenson, who won the silver medal behind Justin Rose at the Olympics last summer, said. “It was certainly a dream come true winning the Open.
“At the same time, now everywhere you go, up until this week, there has been a lot of focus on winning the Open. I feel now it has been a little easier to turn the page and look ahead rather than speaking about what happened three, six, nine, twelve months ago all the time.
“It has been a busy year off the golf course. I’m pretty good at saying no but it still keeps on coming. I am sure that has taken a little of the focus off what we’re trying to do, and that is to compete at the highest level and try to beat the best players in the world.”
In other words, as easily as he handled the glory of being Open champion he didn’t much like the repetitive, backward-looking questions.
Advertisement
Perhaps this — the good and the less good — took a toll on his golf, because Stenson has endured a mediocre year to date. He missed the cut at the Masters and the US Open — though there have been flickering signs of a return to form in his past two events, in Germany last month and at last week’s Scottish Open.
Stenson is the wisecracking Swede who doesn’t like Brussels sprouts and takes his wedding ring off to play golf because it weighs “about three kilos and it’s just not comfortable”. He is the ice man with the volcanic temperament, who lost millions to the fraudster Allen Stanford and has made far more than he lost since then. He is everybody’s friend. And he is still, for a few more days at least, the reigning Open champion.
How returning champions fare
Following year’s result in brackets:
2007 Pádraig Harrington (Winner)
2008 Pádraig Harrington (T65)
2009 Stewart Cink (T48)
2010 Louis Oosthuizen (T54)
2011 Darren Clarke (CUT)
2012 Ernie Els (T26)
2013 Phil Mickelson (T23)
2014 Rory McIlroy (DNP)
2015 Zach Johnson (T12)
2016 Henrik Stenson
