News All Articles
Stenson looking to get back to business
News

Stenson looking to get back to business

Henrik Stenson insists he has no intention of taking his foot off the pedal as he arrives at Baltusrol Golf Club off the back of his spectacular win at The Open Championship.

Henrik Stenson

The Swede's stunning closing 63 at Royal Troon ten days ago sent a host of Major Championship records tumbling and handed both Stenson and his country a first victory in one of golf's big four events.

At 40 years of age, Stenson was a relative late-comer to the Major winning party but he is determined to taste victory again, starting at this week's US PGA Championship.

Open Champion Henrik Stenson

"I want to keep on," he said. "I think golf is a game where you're never going to be finished. You're never going to get to the point where you're maxed out in your ability and how you're playing, so there's always that strive to become better.

"I've got a little perfectionist in there that's always been pushing me forward and that can both make me and break me at times, when you're striving to be your best.

"But no, I don't think I'm going to sit back and just say, 'okay, that was it, I'm finished'. It's definitely the icing on the cake.

To win a Major Championship, that was pretty much the only thing I had not managed to achieve and now I have that. But then at the same time, you can look ahead and then try and win another one - Henrik Stenson

Stenson's final-day battle with Phil Mickelson on the Ayrshire coast will go down as one of the great final days in golf history, with the American trailing three shots behind despite a closing bogey-free 65.

The 20 under par 264 aggregate winning total was a record for a Major Championship but with Mickelson's triumph here 11 years ago coming at four under, Stenson is not expecting to hit those heights again.

"Of course I will be very frustrated if I don't shoot 20 under from every week here on in," he joked.

"Golf, even though we made it look fairly easy on that Sunday, at times it's a hard game and you can't expect to play that well every time. We always strive to play the best we can, and you want to, but you know that's not always going to be the case.

Danny Willett

"But at the same time, when you have a tournament like we had at The Open, I showed for myself what I'm capable of doing.

"I'm not going to be frustrated if I finish on 19 under this week, I promise you."

Stenson has been paired with fellow first-time Major winners from 2016 Danny Willett and Dustin Johnson for rounds one and two in New Jersey, with the Englishman having claimed the Masters Tournament in April.

That result helped move Willett into the top ten of the Official World Golf Ranking and he would not be surprised if another man without a Major title was to make the big move this week.

"Everyone keeps getting better," he said. "We are all training harder. We are all practising harder. We are all working a bit more clever.

Everyone now that's in the top 30, 40, 50 in the world, they are all phenomenal golfers. If they pitch up, they have done their work and not many of them back down these days - Danny Willett

"I think that golf's in fantastic hands. I think you're going to see the next ten or 15 years, more records broken and more scoring records broken and I think you'll see a lot more different champions."

Read next

Discover more

;