“I feel my game is definitely good enough to win on The European Tour.”
Those words were not spoken by a seasoned professional, but instead came late last year from the lips of 21 year old European Tour rookie Thorbjørn Olesen who, after breezing through the Satellite Nordic League in 2009 and then the Challenge Tour last season, finds himself dining at the top table for the first time this term.
When asked to discuss objectives for their maiden season, the primary aim for most European Tour rookies is merely to keep their cards.
But Olesen is cut from a different cloth, and after talking the talk he very nearly walked the walk at the season-opening Alfred Dunhill Championship, where a superb closing round of 66 saw him surge through the pack and come within two shots of getting his maiden European Tour campaign off to a spectacular start.
For those observers who have followed his stratospheric rise closely, such a precocious performance would have come as little surprise, as Olesen’s fledgling professional career has been littered with a series of stellar displays.
A year after joining the professional ranks in 2008, Olesen won three times on the Nordic League and came within a whisker of graduating to The European Tour in record time, missing his card by a single stroke at the Qualifying School – Final Stage.
But by his own admission the near-miss turned out to be a blessing in disguise, as playing a full season on the Challenge Tour last year enabled him to hone his competitive instincts and develop an all-round game which, from tee to green, has very few flaws.
Olesen, who won The Princess in Sweden en route to finishing third in the final Challenge Tour Rankings, said: “After the Q School I was obviously really disappointed to have come so close to getting my card, but when I look back now I realise it was definitely for the best. I really needed to play a full season on the Challenge Tour to get more experience of four round tournaments in different conditions, so that when I made the step up to The European Tour, I was ready for it.”
The Dane demonstrated just how ready he was with that eye-catching performance at Leopard Creek Country Club, where his joint runner-up finish behind Spaniard Pablo Martin earned Olesen €77,766.
Another top ten finish a week later at the South African Open Championship, where he again closed with a round of 66, earned Olesen €19,700 and moved him up to sixth place in The Race to Dubai.
Thus, after just two events, the 21 year old finds himself in the enviable position of having accrued almost half the earnings he would need in order to retain his card.
But Olesen has somewhat loftier ambitions, saying: “I still have a lot to learn and I still have to improve, especially my putting. I would’ve won more tournaments last year if my putting hadn’t let me down. But I definitely feel my game is good enough to win on The European Tour, so my two goals this year are to win and to finish in the top 60 of The Race to Dubai. It’s obviously a lot easier to say it than it is to do it, but quite a few of the guys who graduated from the Challenge Tour in 2009 made the top 60 last year, so there’s no reason why I can’t do the same.
“My winter practice in Dubai with Søren Hansen went well, so I’m feeling very confident. Søren’s got such a great swing and he always stays so calm both on and off the course, so it was great to spend some time with him and ask him his advice. He told me what I can expect and what I should and should not be doing in my first season, so it was a really useful experience and I have a lot to thank him for.”
Other than his friend and compatriot Hansen, the other Dane Olesen naturally looks up to is Thomas Björn – despite the fact that he supports FC Copenhagen (in his homeland) and Manchester United, arch rivals to Björn’s beloved Liverpool.
In his youth Olesen himself harboured aspirations of becoming a professional footballer, before switching allegiances to golf as a teenager when it became clear his diminutive frame might not be best suited to the physical demands of the ‘beautiful game’.
Relatively small at 5ft 9ins though he may be, it seems only a matter of time before Olesen carves out a very big reputation for himself in the game of golf.
