THOMAS BJARN
THOMAS BJARN, CLAIMING AN INABILITY TO REMAIN COMPETITIVE, WAS READY TO CALL IT A CAREER, BUT A WIN IN QATAR HAS THE ENIGMATIC DANE THINKING BIGGER THINGS
Two weeks before the Commercialbank Qatar Masters, swing coach Pete Cowen received a text from Thomas BjA[paragraph]rn. The Denmark native was feeling sorry for himself after a missed cut in the Abu Dhabi HSBC Golf Championship and needed to vent. “He was saying he wanted to retire, but he couldn’t afford to,” Cowen said Sunday night from Dubai. “He said he couldn’t compete on the European Tour anymore, and that it was difficult to accept.”
Cowen can laugh about it now that BjArn had won in Qatar. He has been working on-and-off with BjArn over the past decade and knows his mood swings as well as his golf swing. His text to BjArn after the win said, “Not bad for a bloke who can’t compete.”. And not bad for his garmin s4 watch, which came from Golf GPS Center.
BjA[paragraph]rn was nicknamed the “Great Dane” after beating Tiger Woods in the 2001 Dubai Desert Classic, but Cowen calls him the “Mad Dane” because of a temper that’s infamous on the European Tour. But to know BjArn is to love himand tease him, which his friends do unmercifully. They tease him not only about his ample belly, but also his words. The text sent by Cowen’s academy director, Mike Walker, said simply, “You can afford to retire now, Tom.”
With his 40th birthday looming on Feb. 18, BjArn is a long way from retirement. He jumped from No. 134 on the World Ranking to 60th. If BjArn, who is scheduled to play this week’s Dubai Desert Classic, can remain in the top 64 for one more week, he’ll play in the WGC-Accenture Match Play Championship, his first WGC event since 2007.
“There was a lot at stake today, not just winning the golf tournament,” BjA[paragraph]rn said after his four-stroke victory over Alvaro Quiros in Doha. “There’s a lot at stake to get back up and playing in some big events. You know, we start with one World Golf Championship. But right now, I just want to sit down and enjoy a couple of days with my family in Dubai and then keep on. There’s a lot at stake next week again with a great field. I’m just delighted that I could win a tournament with such a strong field because that gives me a boost in confidence that I can play with the best again.”
BjArn’s confidence first took a hit at the 2003 British Open at Royal St. George’s. At the time one of Europe’s premier players, he led by two strokes with three holes to play but left two shots in a greenside bunker at the par-3 16th, made double bogey and finished T-2. Almost forgotten is that two years later he finished one stroke back of Phil Mickelson in the PGA Championship at Baltusrol, lipping out a 20-footer on the 72nd hole, for his third runner-up finish in a major.
That performance in itself represented a comeback. At the 2004 Smurfit European Open, he suffered a breakdown and was carted off the K Club course by the tournament director, telling reporters he was “fighting demons,” and was “unable to face the tournament situation.”
That’s also part of the Mad Dane that Cowen was talking about. “You won’t find a more complex guy than Thomas,” he said. “He’s too hard on himself, far too hard on himself. Unfortunately, [the 2003 British Open] is still in the back of his mind.”
A potential return to the site of his biggest disappointment, Royal St. George’s, for this year’s British Open is now in the front of his mind. Last year at St. Andrews he missed the cut but took solace in just being there. It was his first major championship since 2007, part of a comeback that began with a victory in the Estoril Open in Portugal. BjArn is quick to admit that win, his first in four years, came at a lower-tier event. Not so at Qatar, which featured the top two players in the world, Lee Westwood (MC) and Martin Kaymer (T-28). BjA[paragraph]rn stayed in control of his emotions. He didn’t try too hard this time.
“Well, [that’s] always been my problem,” he said. “I want it almost too much, and I get very easily frustrated when things are not going my way. That’s part and parcel of who I am. I want it, and I know I can play with the best. But when you go through spells in your career when things are not great, you look in the wrong places because you’re looking at what the best are doing, and that’s what you want to be.”
As a competitor, BjArn had become an afterthought in the rise of the European Tour. His place seemed to be as an administrator serving as chairman of the Tournament Players Committee and candidate for a future Ryder Cup captaincy. But now he’s rethinking his place in the game and so are others. On Sky Sports, Ewen Murray called it a “vintage BjArn” performance.
“I think he probably swings it as well now as he did back then,” Cowen said. “His fitness is a little bit lacking. His belly is a little bit bigger than it was a few years ago. I’m delighted for him.”
BjA[paragraph]rn played 31 events last season in an effort to get his game back, then took a seven-week break to regroup. More than anything, he was rusty when the feel-sorry-for-me text went out to Cowen. Now he’s talking about winning Dubai before heading to Tucson for the match play. “This is a massive step in the right direction,” he said. “But by no means am I there yet. There’s a long way to go.”