It was almost like it was written in the stars. On the tenth anniversary of their Ryder Cup appearance together, England’s Oliver Wilson triumphed at the Swedish Challenge hosted by Robert Karlsson, his 2008 teammate, following a dramatic play-off against Joachim B. Hansen.
Wilson and Hansen were tied on 13 under par after 72 holes and the Englishman eventually emerged victorious on the second extra hole, rolling home a par putt while the Dane could only manage bogey.
The thrilling play-off was the perfect end to a superb week at Katrineholms Golfklubb and Karlsson, an 11-time European Tour winner, has described his pride of being involved in a tournament so close to his heart.
“We’re very proud of it from the club’s side,” he said. “It’s important for us to have this event and important for Sweden.
“My own goal for this week wasn’t very good but I’ve had a couple of weeks off since the Scottish Open and it’s not as easy as everyone thinks just to come out and play well straight away. There are a lot of good players here, and people tend to forget that.
“A couple of years ago I played with Jordan Smith, who has been in the talk a long time for the Ryder Cup, and we had Alexander Björk here as well, who is now playing on Tour. There’s a lot of players that have been here and played at this club before going on to have good success on Tour.”
Although an Englishman ultimately triumphed in Katrineholm, there were several home talents jostling for position at the top of the leaderboard and Karlsson has outlined the importance of this event for the state of Swedish golf.
“The most important thing is to have a tournament on each step on the ladder, especially for the players to have all the wildcards, so the Federation can help out. It’s a very important tournament.
“I always say, because it’s my home club, that this tournament is probably more important than the tournament on the European Tour because without this, we wouldn’t have any players.
“We have a very, very strong correlation over the years where if we have strong Challenge Tour events, we have more players on Tour. The more players we have on Tour, the more likely it is that we’ll have a Henrik Stenson or an Alex Noren. This is hugely important.”
Karlsson, who is one of Thomas Bjørn’sfive Ryder Cup Vice Captains for the biennial contest at Le Golf National in September, learned to play golf at Katrineholms Golfklubb and is grateful to the venue for their non-wavering support.
“I actually grew up in a house to the left of the fourth hole. I actually almost hit it into my old bedroom earlier this week but I was lucky, it caught a branch!
“This is where I grew up and I’m very fortunate that this is a good club. They’ve always been very supportive to good players who have had good success.
“It’s great now that we have this event and hopefully we can start a new tradition of good players.”
