Richard Bevan talks exclusively to The Race to Dubai leader Henrik Stenson about the roller-coaster journey that saw him slide from the top five in the World down to 230th before a scintillating run in some of this summer’s biggest events put him back where he belongs among the World’s top 10.

STENSON'S BACK ON TOP

IT’S August 2011 and while his European and US PGA Tour peers are contesting the final Major of the season in the USPGA Championship at the Atlanta Athletic Club in Georgia, Henrik Stenson is being blown off course by

howling winds over four and a half thousand miles away in his local club championship at Barseback Golf Club in Loddekopinge, Sweden.

To make matters worse, he loses by a shot to his somewhat less famous namesake Henrik Hilford Brander after shooting 12-over for 54 holes. It’s a new low in a career that had been in free fall for the previous 13 months.

It wasn’t so long ago that that the towering Swede was tipped to be the ‘next big thing’ after claiming such prestigious prizes as the 2007 WGC-Accenture Match Play Championship in Arizona and The 2009 Players Championship at TPC Sawgrass in Florida.

Back then he reached the lofty heights of fourth in the Official World Golf Ranking but since a tied third in The 2010 Open Championship he hasn’t been able to buy a top 10 finish and he’s slid out of the top 100 to 130th – hence the absence of an invitation to the ball while his friends chase the

golden goose at the top table in Atlanta. He cuts a dejected figure. Yet things are about to get a lot worse before they get better – his World Ranking eventually bottoms out at a lowly 230th after a dismal run of results that show no sign of ending.

FAST forward two years and things couldn’t be more different. I catch up with a positively

buoyant Stenson who’s just finished third at last month's US PGA Championship at Oak Hill Country Club – his fourth top-four in as many events, following a remarkable run which has taken in the Scottish Open (tied third), The Open (runner-up) and the WGC-Bridgestone Invitational (tied second), as well as his sterling showing at Oak Hill.

He’s leading The Race to Dubai and is back in the World’s Top 10. He looks much happier on course and is right up there in the stats for driving accuracy, greens in regulation and scoring average – proving he's got his game in great shape, as well as being in the best physical condition of his career.

Helping to piece together the '2013 model Henrik Stenson' has been a team effort between golf coach Pete Cowen, sports psychologist Torsten Hansson, and physio Cornel Driessen. The scary thing for his rivals is – he still thinks

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World after being at a really low point. Regarding the slump I went through in 2011, I wasn’t playing as badly as I was back in 2002. I wasn’t nearly as low.

“Of course, I was frustrated. I’d won The Players Championship in '09 with a great final round and then in 2011 I’m fighting to make cuts – it’s not really going to cheer you up. Of course the frustration is going to build up – you’re not delivering to the standard that you know you can.”

Stenson insists there was no one particular reason for his loss in form but rather – just like when the going is good – it was a combination of various factors.

“It’s mental, it’s technical, it’s physical,” he says. “Everything kind of goes hand in hand. Every part is involved when you’re playing badly and every part is involved when you’re playing good.

“Sometimes certain players have gone through tough times outside the golf course and that’s going to impact on your golf. If you’re going through a divorce or you’ve got relatives who are sick, or whatever it might be, that’s going to affect the player as well. Sometimes maybe we don’t look at those kind of things.

“Sometimes just having too much on

Unbelievablepower deliveryHenrik's 3-wood goes further than most Tour professional's drivers

US PGA TOUR STATS

Driving Distance 290.4 72nd

Driving Accuracy 69.49% 6th

Greens in Regulation 70.72% 2nd

Strokes Gained - Putting0.000 106th

Eagles (Holes per) 108.0 4th

Birdie Average 3.42 88th

Scoring Average 69.356 4th

different areas and work towards them.”The same patient approach has been

taken in the work Henrik has done with every member of his backroom team.

Englishman Cowen has been by his side since 2001, “Pete's been with me when I was fourth in the world and when I was 230th, and now we’re back up in the top 10 again, so he’s always been by my side – I’ve always trusted him.

"He knows what I need to do and I know, too, but at times we haven’t been able to get it together yet we’ve been getting closer and closer in the last year.”

Physio and physical conditioning coach Driessen is a relatively new member of the team and Stenson believes their work together has been crucial in giving him the balanced-strength and stamina to compete at the top end of the leaderboard week in, week out.

“I had a meniscus operation at the end of 2011 so when we started we did a bit of rehab on my left knee,” he says. “Then we did some screenings to check the overall status of my fitness. I had strong legs but my core wasn’t quite up to the same level and my shoulders and glutes needed work, too.

“I’m fairly tall with average strength

Left: Henrik weighs up his shot into the final green at last year's DP World Tour Championship where he finished seventh.

“IT’S EXCITING; IT’S BEEN A GREAT RUN. I’M ENJOYING MAKING GREAT RESULTS AND I STILL FEEL I’VE GOT A LOT TO IMPROVE ON – THERE ARE A LOT OF AREAS WHERE I KNOW I CAN BECOME BETTER. HOPEFULLY, I’M GOING TO BE CHALLENGING EVEN MORE WHEN I WORK ON THOSE THINGS.”

Above: Stenson in action in the final round at Castle Stuart en-route to a share of third place in the Scottish Open.

but there were certain areas that were a little bit behind so we’ve been working on them. With golf being a one-sided sport you’re always going to take more strain on either your left side or your right side so you need to balance up the other side.

"We’ve also done some long-term work on mobility, which is obviously important. That’s paid off. I feel like I’m in a lot better shape than I was a year and a half ago.”

When he romped home with a stunning final-round 66 to blow the field away and win one of the biggest titles in golf at The Players Championship four years ago, nobody, least of all the man himself, would have believed that a year later his form and confidence would begin the epic slide that would eventually see him drop outside the World's Top 200.

Such a turnaround in fortunes would be tough for anyone to deal with. Did he ever consider throwing the towel in?

“No I never thought about quitting,” he says. “I went through a big slump in my career back in 2001-2003 and 2002 was a complete right-off of a year. For virtually two years I was really struggling. That was obviously a tough two years but I came back and got up to No.4 in the

there’s plenty of room for improvement. “I owe a lot of credit to my team,” says

Stenson. “I’ve obviously put a lot of hours in myself but they’ve helped out. I feel like I’ve got a really good team around me and everyone’s pushing in the same direction. All the small elements from each one add together to create the bigger picture.

“It’s exciting, it’s been a great run. I’m enjoying making great results and I still feel I’ve got a lot to improve on – there are a lot of areas where I know I can become better. Hopefully, I’m going to be challenging even more when I work on those things.”

Having revived his working relationship with former long-time psychologist Hansson last summer, Stenson believes the fruits of their efforts began to show at Merion in June during the US Open, where he finished in a tie for 21st place.

The pair set out to draw a line under the downward spiral that was engulfing the player and made a commitment to a gradual, long-term improvement rather than frantically chopping and changing things in a bid to find answers.

“I’ve been able to sustain a level-headed approach to my game and stick to my game plan, be decisive, be patient and have all the good traits that you want to have when you’re playing well,” he says. “I’ve been able to keep doing them, so mentally I’ve been very stable for the last two or three months.

“That’s been key. The most important thing that I've got together with Torsten to look at my long-term approach to my game, and the processes I go through. If you’re not getting the right results in tournaments it’s easy to start running around chasing your tail looking for solutions. You’re willing to try one thing one day and something else the next to try and make things happen but that’s just not the formula for success.

“Even though, at 37-years of age, I already know that, sometimes you end up back in that state anyway. So I think that’s the best thing we’ve done – to look at all the different elements of my game, and the things that are going on off the course, see where we are, and what needs to be added, what needs to be taken away, and just set up some good long-term goals in all the

Above: Pete Cowen (top) with Henrik during the pro-am for the 2010 Omega Dubai Desert Classic and (below) new caddie Garth Lord discusses a shot at this year's US PGA Championship at Oak Hill Country Club.

Above: Henrik shakes hands with the seven-shot runaway winner, Tiger Woods, at the WGC-Bridgestone Invitational at Akron, Ohio. "Tiger was so far out in front we were all playing for second place," says Stenson, who finished in a share of second place with Keegan Bradley.

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Top right: Henrik holds his runners-up plate at The Open at Muirfield."I'd love to become the first Swede to win a Major, but more importantly, I just want to win a Major," says Stenson.

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HENRIK STENSON <<

your plate, if you’ve got too much going on outside the golf course it’s going to affect your focus and distract you and sooner or later your game will suffer. There might be a million reasons, there’s not one specific thing that makes a player go into a slump or have a loss of form.”

Determined to stop the rot, Henrik made the decision to overhaul his approach to the game at the start of last year.

“Sooner or later you get fed up with it and I got fed up with it around the beginning of 2012,” he says. “I thought, ‘OK, I’m not playing great but I’m going to at least start getting some results.’ That’s what I did that Spring. Mentally, I forced myself just by sheer willpower to start delivering results and get my way around the golf course the best way I could with whatever game I had."

Results did indeed begin to improve – 15th at Bay Hill, 21st in the Shell Houston Open in the US, then three top 10s over the summer in Europe at the BMW PGA Championship, the French Open

and the Scottish Open. Two more top 10s followed in the autumn before the breakthrough came with a three-stroke victory in the SA Open Championship for his first European Tour title in five years.

The result secured his place in the season-ending DP World Tour Championship, where he finished seventh. Stenson is relishing a November return to the place he called home for almost 10 years with a chance to take the spoils this time around.

“I’ve got some great memories of Dubai, both from winning the Omega Dubai Desert Classic at Emirates Golf Club and from living down there for so many years,” says the Swede, who’s recent form has also propelled him into the top 10 on both the money list and the FedExCup Rankings on the US PGA Tour.

“I’ve got a very strong connection to Dubai and I’m really looking forward to coming there, for the DP World Tour

Championship, and hopefully with a nice lead or even just still in with a chance of winning The Race to Dubai.”

The grouping of the last four events into the big money ‘Final Series’ this year, with players wishing to line up in Dubai required to play at least two of the three events prior to the finale in order to be eligible, will, Stenson believes, add an extra element of excitement to the conclusion of The 2013 Race.

“Everything’s going to be decided in those last four events,” he says. “They’re limited field events with big prize funds so it’s all going to be decided over those four weeks. In terms of winning The Race to Dubai it’s all going to be building up in those events. Myself, Graeme (McDowell) and Justin (Rose), who are the top three on The Race to Dubai, are all playing a very similar schedule and taking some time off after the FedExCup Playoffs in America.

"We’re all pretty much doing the same thing and with some big events still to play on The European Tour during that period there’s plenty of opportunities for

the guys behind the top three to make up some ground. It should set up for an exciting finish and nothing will be decided until the end but I’d like to come in with a healthy lead like I have at the moment.”

But for “a couple of key moments” where he didn’t quite get the momentum he needed in the Scottish Open, The Open, and the US PGA Championship Stenson could easily have claimed all three trophies. “Tiger was so far out in front in the WGC that we were all playing for second place," says Stenson, who's got his game back in the kind of shape that marked him out as one of the best players on the planet in the late 2000s and is showing all the coolness under pressure over the final stretch of the season that earned him the moniker ‘The Iceman’. His form undoubtedly deserves a victory and what better place for it to come that at Jumeirah Golf Estates in two months’ time? n

"MENTALLY I FORCED MYSELF JUST BY SHEER WILLPOWER TO START DELIVERING RESULTS AND GET MY WAY AROUND THE GOLF COURSE THE BEST WAY I COULD WITH WHATEVER GAME I HAD. "

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