The presence of the word “mixed” in the title of last week’s Volvo Car Scandinavian Mixed refers to the tournament’s male and female field. But, in the immediate aftermath of an extraordinary finale, winner Linn Grant voiced an alternative meaning that everyone watching, both at the event and around the world, could fully appreciate.
“It’s very mixed emotions right now,” she conceded after watching her Swedish compatriot Sebastian Söderberg, who held a pre-final round lead of eight shots, endure a nightmare conclusion on the 72nd hole at Vasatorps Golfklubb which handed her the title.
It was her second victory in this DP World Tour and Ladies European Tour co-production, coming two years after she left the field nine shots in her wake at Halmstad Golf Club.
Before Söderberg’s capitulation, Grant had signed for a brilliant 7-under-par final round of 65 to set a clubhouse target of 17-under 271, though the pacesetter seemed certain to better it.
True, he had carded three bogeys to the turn and looked nervous, but he had also partially atoned with a pair of par breakers. His eight-shot lead had been reduced to three, yet it remained a very useful one.
It was not, however, only the shadow of Grant’s score which metaphorically crept across Söderberg’s eyeline on the back nine. So, too, did the knowledge that he had finished second six times on the DP World Tour since his only triumph, in the 2019 European Masters.
Moreover, in his last three starts alone he has failed to convert a share of the halfway lead in April’s ISPS Handa Championship and spurned a three-shot pre-final round advantage in May’s China Open.
Unanswered bogeys by the increasingly fraught leader at Nos. 13 and 15 sent Grant back to the range to keep warm for a playoff she didn’t actually expect to happen.
In one sense, she was quite correct. There was no need for extra holes. But not for the reason she expected.
Söderberg found the fairway with his drive at 18, but his approach plugged in the right-hand greenside bunker.
An hour and a half earlier, Grant had seen her ball cling to the fringe rough above this hazard from where she chipped in for her seventh birdie of the day. Little did she know then how significant that blow was.
It was nothing compared to the series of knockout punches the unfortunate Söderberg now self-administered. He gouged the ball from its deep lie to 25 feet beyond the flag, looked bereft when leaving the tournament-winning putt 15 inches short of the hole and then watched in horror as the bogey putt lipped out.
The galleries watched on in an appalled silence, not knowing how to react to such desperate scenes. Grant herself, when made aware of the result, was immediately alert to the truth that her triumph revealed Söderberg’s trauma.
“Honestly, I feel absolutely terrible for Sebastian at the moment,” she said. “I don’t even have words for it. I can’t imagine how he feels. At the same time, I’m just so surprised to be a winner again. In my hometown, too. It’s amazing.”
Grant’s 65 was the low score of the final round; Söderberg’s 77 was the highest. The winner’s 11-shot deficit entering the final round was the biggest to be overhauled in DP World Tour history.
“I just tried to give myself the opportunity of making a good score,” she said. “I didn’t really think I had a chance of winning. I just wanted to make as many birdies as possible and have fun with my brother [Jonathan] on the bag.”
Grant will take this week off before returning to the States for the KPMG Women’s PGA Championship at Sahalee Country Club in Sammamish, Washington. Now a six-time winner on the LET before she turns 25 on June 20, Grant also is a six-time top-20 finisher in the eight majors she has played as a professional. A top-five result, perhaps even a victory, would appear to be within reach this summer at one of the women’s majors.
Matt Cooper