Great Dane Thomas Bjørn became the 15th player to reach the 600 appearance landmark on the DP World Tour when he teed off the Alfred Dunhill Links Championship at Carnoustie on Thursday.
The 52-year-old has come a long way since winning his first DP World Tour title at the Loch Lomond World Invitational in 1996, becoming the first Danish winner on Tour on the way to being named the Sir Henry Cotton Rookie of the Year.
Widely regarded as one of the DP World Tour’s greatest players, Bjørn celebrated his 500th DP World Tour appearance on home soil at Himmerland Golf & Spa Resort in 2017.
He has been a flagbearer for Danish golf since he burst onto the scene on the European Challenge Tour with three wins in 1995 and has since experienced success on both the DP World Tour and the Legends Tour.
Bjørn has amassed 15 DP World Tour titles in a career where he has developed a special affinity for the Ryder Cup. He became the first Danish player to appear in golf’s greatest team contest in 1997, playing twice more in 2002 and 2014 and experiencing victory on all three occasions.
Arguably his greatest Ryder Cup moment came in 2018, when he captained Team Europe to a memorable victory in Paris, and the success continued as he contributed to another European win in Italy last week as one of Luke Donald’s Vice Captains
600th DP World Tour start under way!
— DP World Tour (@DPWorldTour) October 5, 2023
Congratulations @thomasbjorngolf 👏 #dunhilllinks pic.twitter.com/od341MCrUX
The winning ways continued after he turned 50, as he notched up two Legends Tour titles in successive years – at the Irish Legends presented by the McGinley Foundation in 2021 and the MCB Tour Championship – Mauritius in 2022.
He was also appointed Chairman of the DP World Tour’s Tournament Committee in 2007, but stepped aside in 2016 in order to focus on his duty as Ryder Cup Captain.
Bjørn now joins an illustrious list of players to have reached the remarkable 600 appearance milestone.
Sam Torrance was the first man to achieve the feat in 1998, and has since been followed by Eamon Darcy (2001), Roger Chapman (2005), Barry Lane (2007), Malcolm Mackenzie (2008), Colin Montgomerie (2012), Miguel Ángel Jiménez (2012), Peter Baker (2015), Paul Lawrie (2017), David Howell (2018), Robert Karlsson (2018), Raphaël Jaquelin (2019), Søren Kjeldsen (2020) and Stephen Gallacher (2021).
