BEDMINSTER, N.J. — Henrik Stenson said the last few weeks haven’t been much fun, which may be the undersell of the century seeing as the five-time member of Team Europe lost his Ryder Cup captaincy for the 2023 matches after joining the LIV Golf Invitational Series.
The 46-year-old Swede was somehow able to block the outside noise and focus in his debut for the upstart circuit led by Greg Norman and backed by Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund, taking home the individual title by two shots at 11 under. Stenson last won at the 2019 Hero World Challenge, Tiger Woods’ unofficial event in the Bahamas. His last PGA Tour victory came at the 2017 Wyndham Championship. The victory netted Stenson a cool $4 million.
“Yeah, it has been a bit of a roller coaster, no question. You’ve all seen that, and we talked about it earlier in the week,” said Stenson. “Now it’s about looking forward, for me at least, and yeah, I’m super proud with the focus I managed to have this week and to get my game in – I’ve been working pretty hard to get the game back in shape, and it’s certainly going in the right direction as we know now.”
Stenson was tied for the lead at Trump National Golf Club after the first round, held the solo lead after Saturday’s second round and did just enough to win Sunday, shooting a 2-under 69 for the second consecutive day. A charging Matthew Wolff tied Stenson and Patrick Reed for the low round of the week with a final-round, 7-under 64 to finish T-2 with Dustin Johnson. Carlos Ortiz finished fourth at 8 under, with Reed rounding out the top five at 7 under.
“I think there might have been a little bit of extra motivation in there this week. When we as players have that, I think we can bring out the good stuff. Yeah, I certainly did that this week,” Stenson explained. “I guess that’s been a bit of a theme over the course of my career, I think, when I really want something I manage to dig a little bit deeper, and a lot of times we manage to make it happen.”
Johnson’s 4 Aces have stacked the LIV Golf deck and won for a second consecutive event, claiming the team competition by eight shots over Lee Westwood’s Majesticks. The 4 Aces will split $3 million ($750,000 each) for their efforts, with the Majesticks earning $1.5 million ($375,000 each). Sergio Garcia’s Fireballs finished third and will split $500,000 ($125,000 each).
“Today we knew we needed to play some good golf to finish if we wanted to win this tournament as a team, and also we were both right in the mix trying to chase down Henrik,” Johnson said of his and Reed’s pursuit. “If we wanted to put a little pressure on him, we had to make some birdies and play good coming home, coming down the stretch.”
LIV Golf has long been criticized as a way for the Kingdom to sportswash its human rights record with guaranteed money and multi-million dollar deals. Saudi Arabia has been accused of wide-ranging human rights abuses, including politically motivated killings, torture, forced disappearances and inhumane treatment of prisoners. And members of the royal family and Saudi government were accused of involvement in the murder of Jamal Khashoggi, a Saudi journalist and Washington Post columnist.
The series will take the month of August off before its fourth event Labor Day Weekend, Sept. 2-4, at The International near Boston.
