Rasmus Højgaard is thrilled with his performance at Made in HimmerLand 2023 after recovering from injury and hopes to have inspired the next generation.
Højgaard made four birdies in his first six holes on day three and seven in all in a round of 65.
While he is surely out of range of Nacho Elvira’s leading score of 13 under, at seven under Højgaard is the leading home player at Farsø in northern Denmark - having been in danger of not teeing it up at all after missing the Betfred British Masters hosted by Sir Nick Faldo with a rib injury.
He said: “I could see early on that there were some good scores out there, I saw Søren Kjeldsen starting with four birdies, so had to stay patient and managed to shoot a good score.
“I have to adapt every day, today you want to get off to a fast start and put birdies on the scorecard but you can easily get stuck in that mindset and not focus on hitting the good shots.
“Today I would have liked to get to maybe a couple more under par, I felt like I had the game out there to do that, but I’m still very happy with minus five.”
For the second successive day, one of Højgaard’s birdies came at the course’s ultra-short signature 16th hole HimmerLand Hill where the crowds – including a sizeable contingent of youngsters - have been vociferous in support of him.
“It’s been a lot of fun,” he said, before appropriately being greeted by the sound of one of the squeaky ducks sold to spectators in support of Danish charity KidsAid.
“I actually thought today I had a chance to make a hole in one after I saw it land but it was nice to give them something to cheer about.
“It’s awesome, I can still remember when I was their age and saw this tournament for the first time, so it’s very cool to see and hopefully some of them in the future will be good players.”
