Bernhard Langer will make his first appearance on The European Tour as the newly appointed European Ryder Cup Captain when he tees up in the Scandic Carlsberg Scandinavian Masters at Barsebäck Golf and Country Club in Sweden this week.
Langer last week accepted an invitation from The Ryder Cup Board to captain Europe in The 35th Ryder Cup Matches at Oakland Hills Country Club, Bloomfield Hills, Michigan, United States, from September 17-19, 2004, and is sure to be the centre of attention at Barsebäck this week.
The 45 year old has won 42 titles on The European Tour, his latest victory coming in the season-ending Volvo Masters Andalucia last year when he tied with Colin Montgomerie, but the Scandinavian Masters is one of the few titles to have eluded him.
Langer will be aiming to put that statistic right this week but will have to overcome a high quality field at Barsebäck including Sweden’s Fredrik Jacobson, a player hoping to follow Joakim Haeggman and Jesper Parnvik as a home winner of the event.
Jacobson arrives in Sweden as the “form horse” having won twice on The 2003 European Tour International Schedule with victories in the Omega Hong Kong Open and the Algarve Open de Portgual. His victory in Portugal was the 50th by a Swedish player on The European Tour International Schedule, a total subsequently increased to 51 with Mathias Grönberg’s victory in the 60th Italian Open Telecom Italia. No fewer than 19 Swedes have now won on The European Tour.
Jacobson has also performed with distinction in the last two Major Championships, finishing as the joint highest European in the US Open Championship in a tie for fifth place and securing a joint sixth place finish in the 132nd Open Golf Championship at Royal St George’s earlier this month. Between those two championships he enjoyed a strong run on the US PGA Tour with top tens in the Fedex St Jude Classic and the 100th Western Open.
Jacobson leads a strong home challenge that includes Niclas Fasth and Pierre Fulke, both of whom played a pivotal role in Europe’s Ryder Cup victory at The De Vere Belfry last September, along with Grönberg, Richard S Johnson, Robert Karlsson, Adam Mednick, Carl Petterson, Jarmo Sandelin and Henrik Stenson, all of whom have won on The European Tour International Schedule in the past three seasons.
Northern Ireland’s Graeme McDowell will be defending the title following his stunning victory 12 months ago at Kungsängen when he won in only his fourth European Tour event after turning professional a month earlier. Having opened with a seven under par 64, McDowell added rounds of 73 and 66 before closing with a 67 to win the title by stroke from playing partner Trevor Immelman. It was a remarkable victory for the former Walker Cup player at the club he represents and secured his European Tour card after a highly successful amateur career in which he was ranked Number One Collegiate Golfer in the United States.
For Immelman it was one of three runners-up finishes of 2002 and it was only a matter of time before the young South African took his place in the winners’ enclosure. That moment duly arrived at the start of the 2003 season when he won the South African Airways Open at Ernivale Golf Club in front of his home crowd after a sudden-death play-off.
The following week he was again involved in a play-off for the dunhill championship but was unable to make it a double as England’s Mark Foster triumphed and in May he made his third play-off of the season, this time in the Volvo PGA Championship at Wentworth Club. Immelman came within a whisker of winning his second European Tour title of the season when his long birdie putt on the final green lipped out and he finished tied with Spain’s Ignacio Garrido but on returning to the 18th in a sudden-death play-off Garrido played a sublime chip from the right to secure the title with a birdie four, a shot which won him The Royal Bank of Scotland Shot of the Month Award for May.
It will be the sixth time the Volvo Scandinavian Masters has been played at Barsebäck and a measure of the course's standing can be ascertained with a glance at its previous winners, all of whom have been Ryder Cup players, Nick Faldo, Haeggman, Montgomerie, winner on the two previous visits to Barsebäck, and Parnevik.
